Tears Of The Moon
"La mar
no tiene naranjas, ni Sevilla tiene amor..."
(The sea has no oranges, nor Seville any love...)
from Adelina
de Paseo, by Federico Garcia Lorca
I.
The sea is made
from the tears of the moon.
They fall like meteorites
to build the splash of azure rivers.
They fall like rocks
the air has set on fire in
a coliseum of dust, an iron mist
burning with the blue taste of salt.
The sea is cold, incalculable
as the heart of my beloved,
changeful, infinite, self-satisfied
and blind. This is why
the moon cries. She knows she lays
her silver face for nothing
across the drenched toss of the
erasing waves. The sea
is too busy,
tonight, and every
night.
II.
The sea has far to travel
to kiss the dun lips of Spain, to fondle
Gibraltar like a primitive doll,
to curl the sand under
on the Costa
del Sol,
guitaring sweet lovesongs
to women with eyes like summer figs
who walk with the chiming of rice in the wind
whose hips round as oranges
call night after
night
for the men who don't come; nuns
of blue rivers, learning to understand
the tears of the moon
that drip from the lids of
an extinguished rock, while on the
ruined plains of a waterless
country
an old woman reads Lorca at midnight,
with the tears of the moon on her cheeks.
~January 2020
originally posted for earthweal
reposted for Desperate Crossings at
Images: Orange Trees on the Road to Seville, 1903 © Joaquin Sorolla Public Domain
The Font, 1930 © Salvador Dali Public Domain
