Death





How hard they try!

How hard the horse tries

to become a dog!

How hard the dog tries to become a swallow!

How hard the swallow tries to become a bee!

How hard the bee tries to become a horse!

And the horse,

what a sharp arrow it presses from the rose,

what a pale rose rising from its lips!

And the rose,

what a flock of lights and cries

knotted in the living sugar of its trunk!

And the sugar,

what daggers it dreams in its vigils!

And the daggers,

what a moon without stables, what nakedness,

eternal and blushing flesh they seek out!

And I, on the roof’s edge,

eternal and blushing angel I look for and am!

But the plaster arch,

how vast, how invisible, how minute,

without even trying!













Federico Garcia Lorca

( From 'Introduction to death', The Poet in New York, 1939)