A Heart-Felt Attempt: A Stab at Translating Lorca’s “Deseo”

I’ve been thinking about poetry in translation, this week, as translating a poem feels a little like writing a love song to somebody else’s poem. This exercise is it, for now, folks! Enjoy.

Deseo

Sólo tu corazón caliente,
Y nada más.

Mi paraíso, un campo
Sin ruiseñor
Ni liras,
Con un río discreto
Y una fuentecilla.

Sin la espuela del viento
Sobre la fronda,
Ni la estrella que quiere
Ser hoja.

Una enorme luz
Que fuera
Luciérnaga
De otra,
En un campo de
Miradas rotas.

Un reposo claro
Y allí nuestros besos,
Lunares sonoros
Del eco,
Se abrirían muy lejos.

Y tu corazón caliente,
Nada más.

Wish

Just your hot heart
and nothing else.

My paradise: a field
with no nightingales
and no lyres,
but a discrete river,
a little fountain.

Without wind spurring
through the leaves
or the star that would like
itself to be a leaf.

An enormous light
that was once
a firefly rising
for someone else,
in a field of
halted glances.

A still calm
from which to let our kisses go,
sonorous circles
of echo
that will open far away.

—Sara