poetista

federico garcía lorca was a spanish poet. he came from granada, a city that i love and which now boasts a large, rose-filled park named after him, in which his little house sits. he wrote some lovely poems, one of which i'll give you below. however, it is his artwork that i love the most: simple spanish portraits, drawn in simple colored pencil. somehow they have a fairy-tale quality... maybe because they depict another world, the one that lorca lived in himself—one that is no longer accessible to us, perhaps.

río azul.

el barco de marfil

lleva las manzanas

de los besos muertos.

manzanas de nieve

con el surco tembloroso de los labios.

río azul.

y el agua

es una mirada líquida,

un brazo de pupila

infinita.

río azul.

*

blue river.

the boat of marble

conveys the fruits

of expired kisses.

apples of snow

with the trembling marks of lips.

blue river.

and the water

is a liquid mirage,

an arm of eyesight

that never ends.

blue river.

what do you think of that translation? (i did it. there was another one in the book i have, but i didn't like it.) i just love the colors in this poem—ripe fruits, or apples, against the blue river and the snow.