Federico García Lorca
______

The Guitar

The cry of the guitar
begins.
The wineglasses of dawn
are broken.
The cry of the guitar
begins.
It’s useless
to quiet it.
Impossible
to quiet it.
It cries on monotonously,
the way water cries,
the way wind
cries over a first snowfall.
It’s useless
to quiet it.
It cries
for the distance.
For the sand of the incendiary South
that begs for white camellias.
It cries for an arrow without a target,
an afternoon without a morning,
for the first bird
dead on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart sorely wounded
by five swords.

—translated by Ralph Angel