by Federico García Lorca. Translated by Robert Bly.
The sunrise of New York
has four columns of filth
and a hurricane of black pigeons
that putter in the putrid waters.
The sunrise of New York groans
up the immense staircases
searching along the sharp edges
for etched spice-plants of anguish.
The sunrise arrives, and no one opens his mouth to
receive it,
because neither tomorrow nor hope is possible here.
Only now and then mad swarms of nickels and dimes
sting and eat the abandoned children.
The first to leave their houses know in their bones
there'll be no paradise and no love without leaves;
they know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws,
to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit.
The light is already buried by chains and noises
in the ugly threat of science that has no roots.
Through the suburbs people who cannot sleep are staggering
as though recently rescued from a shipwreck of blood.