Before me the world is a binding seal,
and my home to me is a prison, my son.
After your death I'll go in fear
no more of Time-- for my terror has come.

  --By Shmu'el HaNagid, also known as Samuel ibn Naghrilla (993-after 1056) from The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492, edited and translated by Peter Cole (2007). Cole is a poet himself and has won the MacArthur award, among many others.

Let man remember throughout his life
he's on his way toward death:
each day he travels only a little
so thinks he's always at rest--

like someone sitting at ease on a ship
while the wind sweeps it over the depths.

  --By Moshe Ibn Ezra (ca 1055-after 1138) from The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492, edited and translated by Peter Cole (2007). Cole is a poet himself and has won the MacArthur award, among many others.

Death, as told to a neighborhood child

Death used to come, sometimes,
but it never wanted to go away
as it felt good,
very good,
you know,
a bit like you when you go to the park and play
with your friends, with your dog…
and then you take a green stone
and you break it with a white stone,
and suddenly, you start to cry
without any reason,
and nobody cares,
so you go quiet, and then start playing again
with this or with that…
Death never went away,
it will be with us forever,
Death, you know.

   --Vicent Andrés Estellés (1924-1993), a Catalán poet, "is considered to be the greatest poet that the Valencian Country has seen since the fifteenth century." Thank you to Irene Blasco for the post and her English translation. I have changed very slightly to make it idiomatic.

La Mort, Contada a un Nen del Veïnat

La Mort venia de vegades,
però mai no se'n volia anar,
car es trobava bé,
allò que es diu ben bé,
ja saps,
com tu quan surts al corral i jugues
amb els pollets i amb els conills
i agafes una pedra verda
i la trenques amb una pedra blanca
i et poses a plorar de sobte
perquè sí, sense cap moriu,
i com ningú no et fa cas
calles,
i després tornes a jugar
amb açò o amb allò...
Mai no se'n va anar, la Mort,
i es va quedar per a sempre amb nosaltres,
la Mort, ja sap

Life, as told to a neighborhood child

And then God gave Life to the man,
and it was so beautiful and delicate
that the man didn't know
what to do with it
and he was happy just sleeping.
But, next morning,
grief came back to him,
along with a strong desire to cry,
and he carried Life
like someone who carries a baby,
or dynamite…
Sometimes he held it like a gift
and he wanted to show it,
but everybody had one, they ignored him.
And he stood sadly in silence…
Have you already eaten your lunch?

   --Vicent Andrés Estellés (1924-1993), a Catalán poet, "is considered to be the greatest poet that the Valencian Country has seen since the fifteenth century." Thank you to Irene Blasco for the post and her English translation, which I have changed very slightly for rhythm.

La Vida Contada a un Nen del Veïnat

I llavors, Déu li va donar
la Vida a l'home,
i era tan bella i delicada
que l'home no sabia
què fer amb ella
i sols era feliç dormint.
Al dematí, però,
tornava la congoixa
i li venia aquell
desig enorme de plorar,
i duia als seus braços la Vida
com qui duu un nen de bolquers,
com qui duu un setrill de nitroglicerina...
De vegades la duia com si fos un regal
i volia amostrar
-la, però tots en tenien i no li feien cas,
i callava, tristíssim...
¿Ja t'has menjat el berenar?

Every evening in Granada,
every evening a child dies.
Every evening the water sits down
to converse with its friends.

The dead wear wings of moss.
The cloudy wind and the clean wind
are two pheasants who fly by the towers
and the day is a wounded boy.

Not a sliver of lark was left in the air
when I met you by the caves of wine
not a crumb of cloud was left in the sky
when you drowned in the river.

A giant of water fell over the mountains
and the valley was whirling with dogs and irises.
Your body, with the dark purple of my hands,
was, dead on the pillow, an archangel of cold.

 Todas las tardes en Granada,
todas las tardes se muere un niño.
Todas las tardes el agua se sienta
a conversar con sus amigos.

Los muertos llevan alas de musgo.
El viento nublado y el viento limpio
son dos faisanes que vuelan por las torres
y el día es un muchacho herido.

No quedaba en el aire ni una brizna de alondra
cuando yo te encontré por las grutas del vino
No quedaba en la tierra ni una miga de nube
cuando te ahogabas por el río.

Un gigante de agua cayó sobre los montes
y el valle fue rodando con perros y con lirios.
Tu cuerpo, con la sombra violeta de mis manos,
era, muerto en la orilla, un arcángel de frío.

All right, now I 'll say it. Dante makes me sick.

      --Lope de Vega (1562-1635), Spanish poet and playwright, on his deathbed

De acuerdo, entonces, lo diré: Dante me hace enfermar.

Sonnet IV

This light of Seville.. it is the palace
where I was born, with its sound of fountains.
My father, in his study. His high forehead,
his short beard, and the limp mustache.

My father, though young. He is reading, writing,
leafing through his books and thinking. He rises;
he goes toward the door to the garden. He goes through.
Sometimes he talks to himself, sometimes he sings.

His big eyes anxiously looking
now seem to wander, without a place
to rest, in the emptiness.

Now they escape from his yesterday to his tomorrow;
now they are looking through time, my father!
kindly at my gray head.

       --Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

Esta luz de Sevilla... Es el palacio
donde nací, con su rumor de fuente.
Mi padre, en su despacho. La alta frente,
la breve mosca, y el bigote lacio.

Mi padre, aún joven. Lee, escribe, hojea
sus libros y medita. Se levanta;
va hacia la puerta del jardín. Pasea.
a veces habla solo, a veces canta.

Sus grandes ojos de mirar inquieto
ahora vagar parecen, sin objeto
donde puedan posar, en el vacío.

Ya escapan de su ayer a su mañana;
ya miran en el tiempo, ¡padre mío!,
piadosamente mi cabeza cana.

When I die I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me one more time
to feel the smoothness that changed my destiny.

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep,
I want for your ears to go on hearing the wind,
for you to smell the sea that we loved together
and for you to go on walking the sand where we walked.

I want for what I love to go on living
and as for you I loved you and sang you above everything,
for that, go on flowering, flowery one,

so that you reach all that my love orders for you,
so that my shadow passes through your hair,
so that they know by this the reason for my song.

        --Pablo Neruda, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada. Cien Sonetos de Amor. Plaza y Janés. Ave Fénix 205-2. Sexta edición, junio 1998.

        LXXXIX

Cuando yo muera quiero tus manos en mis ojos:
quiero la luz y el trigo de tus manos amadas
pasar una vez más sobre mí su frescura:
sentir la suavidad que cambió mi destino.

Quiero que vivas mientras yo, dormido, te espero,
quiero que tus oídos sigan oyendo el viento,
que huelas el aroma del mar que amamos juntos
y que sigas pisando la arena que pisamos.

Quiero que lo que amo siga vivo
y a ti te amé y canté sobre todas las cosas,
por eso sigue tú floreciendo, florida,

para que alcances todo lo que mi amor te ordena,
para que se pasee mi sombra por tu pelo,
para que así conozcan la razón de mi canto.

Suddenly the afternoon clears up
because the little rain is falling now.
Falling or has fallen. The rain is something
that doubtless happens in the past.

Whoever hears it fall has recovered
the time in which a lucky chance
revealed to him a flower called rose
and the curious color of colorado.

This rain that blinds the crystals
will make happy, in lost
the black grapes of a vine on a certain

patio that no longer exists. The wet
evening brings me the voice, the wished-for voice,,
of my father coming home, who has not died.

       --Jorge Luís Borges (1899-1986)

Bruscamente la tarde se ha aclarado
porque ya cae la lluvia minuciosa.
Cae o cayó. La lluvia es una cosa
que sin duda sucede en el pasado.

Quien la oye caer ha recobrado
el tiempo en que la suerte venturosa
le reveló una flor llamada rosa
y el curioso color del colorado.

Esta lluvia que ciega los cristales
alegrará en perdidos arrabales
las negras uvas de una parra en cierto

patio que ya no existe. La mojada
tarde me trae la voz, la voz deseada,
de mi padre que vuelve y que no ha muerto.

The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,   
nor horses nor the ants in your house.
The boy does not know you, nor the evening,
because you have died for ever.

The stone slab does not know  you,
nor the black satin where you are mangled.
Your tired memory does not know you
because you have died for ever.

The autumn will come with conch shells,
cluster of fog and rows of mountains,
but no one will want to look into your eyes
because you have died for ever.

Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the Earth,
like all the dead that are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.

No one knows you. No. But I sing of you.
I sing for the future your profile and your grace.
The remarkable maturity of your knowledge.
Your appetite for death and the taste of your mouth.

The sadness of your valiant cheerfulness.
It will be a long time before there is born, if there is ever born,
an Andalusian so bright, so rich with adventure.
I sing of your elegance with words that groan
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.

        --Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), from "Alma Ausente, Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías" [Absent Soul, Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías].

No te conoce el toro ni la higuera,
ni caballos ni hormigas de tu casa.
No te conoce el niño ni la tarde
porque te has muerto para siempre.

No te conoce el lomo de la piedra,
ni el raso negro donde te destrozas.
No te conoce tu recuerdo mudo
porque te has muerto para siempre.

El otoño vendrá con caracolas,
uva de niebla y montes agrupados,
pero nadie querrá mirar tus ojos
porque te has muerto para siempre.

Porque te has muerto para siempre,
como todos los muertos de la Tierra,
como todos los muertos que se olvidan
en un montón de perros apagados.

No te conoce nadie. No. Pero yo te canto.
Yo canto para luego tu perfil y tu gracia.
La madurez insigne de tu conocimiento.
Tu apetencia de muerte y el gusto de su boca.

La tristeza que tuvo tu valiente alegría.
Tardará mucho tiempo en nacer, si es que nace,
un andaluz tan claro, tan rico de aventura.
Yo canto su elegancia con palabras que gimen
y recuerdo una brisa triste por los olivos.