In Fuente Vaqueros

In Fuente Vaqueros no cowboys, no fountain,
no bark on green sea, no horse on a mountain,
only the burros shaking flies from their ears,
and chickens and dust in the streets of Fuente Vaqueros.

          The sun has his way with us.  It is not yet five in the evening.

In Fuente Vaqueros, no plaque on the house of the poet.
In Sierra Nevada only the earth knows his couch.
Ah, Mejias embraced by the horns! Federico assaulted by bullets!
Civil Guard riflebutts no longer knock at that door.

          What is the hour, compadre?

Barren as Yerma the fountain, as dry as Bernarda,
as hot as Granada lime in Sacre Monte
(Te quiero verde, verde) where Lola Medina
spends what is left of that vibrant gypsy passion,
her heels in machine-gun staccato drumming duende.

Is there time, in this dusty pueblo, to conjure things silver,
hard as the arroyo, bright as daggers of cactus,
to fuse the flower and the maggot, to see with the dead
that the nearest to death are the loveliest?

          Como se pasa el tiempo.

          But now it is five, it is evening.
          We must return. Lovers await us.