Ballet of Death and the Moon

Cold…so cold,

My ashes, my heavy sleeping metals

seek the cresting flame

in the streets and in the mountains.

I’m carried by the snowdrift,

carried upon its jasper shoulders.

Each river chills me in its icy water…

At least tonight I’ll have red blood,

blood to paint my cheeks,

blood for the reeds that huddle

at the wide feet of the wind.

There is no shade, no shadow

where they can hope to hide.

I long to enter a breast

where I can warm myself.

A heart, a throbbing heart,

bursting with blood to spill

over my frozen breasts.

Let me come in,

oh, let me…

I’ll shine upon their horses

with a burning diamond light.

Federico García Lorca translated by Michael Dewell and Carmen Zapata