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)