Gacela of the Memory of Love

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by Federico Garcia Lorca
translation by Gilbert Wesley Purdy


You do not keep your memory.
You leave it only in my heart,

tremor of white cherry
in the martyrdom of January.

I am separated from the dead
by a wall of nightmares.

I pronounce a sentence of fresh lily
upon a heart of plaster.

All night, my eyes
in the orchard, like two dogs.

All night, the quinces
running with poison.

Sometimes the wind
is a tulip of fear,

is a stricken tulip,
the dawn of winter.

A wall of nightmares
separates me from the dead.

Mist covers the gray valley
of your body in silence.

Hemlock is growing over
the arch of the trysting-gate.

But it lets in your memory,
lets it only into my heart.




Gilbert Wesley Purdy has published poetry, prose and translation in many journals, paper and electronic, including: Jacket Magazine, Poetry International (San Diego State University), The Georgia Review (University of Georgia), Grand Street, SLANT (University of Central Arkansas), Consciousness Literature and the Arts (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), Orbis (UK), Eclectica, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Links to his work online and to a selected bibliography of his work in paper venues appear at his Hyperlinked Online Bibliography.

Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Federico Garcia Lorca:

• The Federico Garcia Lorca Page. Links to online interviews, essays, poetry, prose, translations, photos and much more;
• Gacela of Distracted Love by Federico Garcia Lorca.

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• The Pablo Neruda Page: Links to online interviews, essays, poetry, prose, translations, photos and much more.
  
  

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