From Federico Garcia Lorca
Nadie comprendia el perfume
de la oscura magnolia de tu vientre.
Nadie sabía que martirizabas
un colibri de amor entre los dientes.
Mil caballitos persas se dormian
en la plaza con luna de tu frente,
mientras que yo enlazaba cuatro noches
tu cintura, enemiga de la nieve.
Entre yeso y jasmines, tu Mirada
era un palido ramo de simientes.
Yo busque, para darte, por mi pecho
las letras de marfil que dicen siempre,
siempre, siempre: jardin de mi agonia,
tu cuerpo fugitive para siempre,
la sangre de tus venas en mi boca,
tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte.
GHAZAL OF UNEXPECTED LOVE
No one understands the perfume
of the black magnolia of your womb.
No one knew you martyred
a hummingbird of love between your teeth.
A thousand Persian ponies sleep
in the square with the moon on your forehead,
while through four nights I held
you by the waist, enemy of the snow.
Between plaster and jasmine, you saw
that I was a pallid branch of seeds.
I sought, in my heart, to give you
the ivory letters that exclaim, always,
always, always: garden of my agony,
your body is fugitive always,
the blood of your veins in my mouth,
your mouth no longer the light for my death.
Wally Swist’s Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) was selected by Yusef Komunyakaa as co-winner in the 2011 Crab Orchard Series Open Poetry Contest. He was 2018 winner of the Ex Ophidia Press Poetry Prize for his collection, A Bird Who Seems to Know Me: Poetry Regarding Birds and Nature.
