A Alfredo Hurtado
Algo rozó la nada
y derramó su soplo por el orbe
Desde entonces el dia fragmentado
alterna con la noche
Las horas se fatigan
se devoran a si mismo los soles
y se huedece aquella piedra azul
que afila el trino de los ruiseñores
Cuando el hombre sea dios
habrá un toque de hombros
entre el llano y el monte,
los astros detrendrán sus vuelos milenarios
de sus jaulas abiertas se escaparán los bosques
una mano de dedos como ríos
halagará la frente de los mundos insomnes
un largo sueño abitirá sus alas.
el dia irá apagándose, se encendrá la noche
y todos moriremos de la misma manera
definitivamente como mueren los dioses
……….Pedro Garfias
To Alfredo Hurtado
Something grazed the void
and spilled its breath over the globe
Since then, day fragmented
alternates with night
The hours grow weary
the suns devour each other
and that blue rock grows damp
sharpening nightingales’ trill
When man is god
there will be a touch of shoulders
between mountains and plains
The stars will stop their endless flight
From their open cages, forests will escape
A hand with fingers like rivers
will caress the foreheads of sleepless worlds
A long slumber will pull down its wings
Day will start fading, night will light up
And we will all die in the same way
definitively as the gods die
….. translated by Roberta Gould
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Pedrfo Garfias was born in Salamanca, Spain, but spent his childhood and youth in the Andalusian cities of Seville and Córdoba. He considered himself Analucian, and had great love and knowledge of el Cante Hondo. He collaborated on el Manifiesto Ultraísta (Ultraist Manifesto) a vanuard turning point in Spanish literature and he founded the poetry magazines Horizonte, publishing Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Jorge Guillén y Federico García. He received the Premio Nacional de Literatura for his book Poesías de la Guerra Española; in England he published Primavera en Eaton Hasting and in Mexico, forced into exile by the Spanish Civil War, where he had crossed battle lines from one side to the other unsuccesfully urging peace, but so respected as a great poet that he was never shot, he published Ríos de Aguas Amargas, and subsequent poems. The one in this post, is from 1955. He died in Monterrey Mexico, 1967.