CASIDAS

VI
Casida of the Impossible Hand

I want no more than a hand,
A wounded hand, if possible.
I want no more than a hand,
even if I spend a thousand nights with no bed.
 
It would be a pale lily of lime,
a dove it would be, chained to my heart,
the guard it would be, who on my last night
would deny the moon entrance wholly.
 
I want no more than that hand
for daily unction, the white sheet of my dying.
I want no more than that hand
to bear a wing of my death.
 
All the rest passes.
Blush now without a name. Perpetual star.
The rest is the other; sad breeze,
While the hosts of leaves flee.

Federico García Lorca Translation by A. S. Kline