-2-

because I hear their horses.

Child, leave me alone, and don't
touch my starchy whiteness.

The horseman draws near
beating the drum of the plain.
Within the forge the child
has its eyes closed.

Through the olive groves gypsies
come bronzed and dreamy,
their heads held high
and their eyes glancing sidewise.

How the owl hoots!
How it hoots in the tree-tops!
Through the sky the moon goes
with a child by the hand.

Within the forge gypsies
weep crying loudly.
The air veils her, veils her.
The air is veiling her.

-7-

on sheets of Holland linen,
Don't you see this cut I have
from my chest to my throat?
Three hundred dark roses
stain your white shirt-front.
Your blood oozes pungent
around the edge of your waitband.
But I am no longer I,
and this house is not my house.
Let me go up at least
as high as the highest railings.
Let me go up!
Up to the green railings!
Bannisters of the moon
where the falling water sounds.
The two friends go up,
up towards the highest railing,
leaving a trail of blood,
leaving a trail of tears.
Little tin-plate lanterns
tremble on the roof-tops.
A thousand tambourines of crystal
wound the early dawn.

Green as I would have you green.
Greenwind. Green branches.
The two friends went up.
A steady wind left in the mouth
a strange taste of gall,
mint, and sweet basil.

Friend, where is she, tell me?
Where is your bitter sweetheart?
How often she would wait!
Cool face, black hair,
on the face of the cistern
a gypsy girl sways.
Green flesh, green hair,
with eyes of cold silver.

-9-

THE GYPSY NUN

Silence of lime and myrtle.
Mallow among the herbs.
The nun Embroiders gilliflowers
on a straw-colored cloth.
Seven rainbow birds
fly through the grey chandelier.
The church growls in the distance
like a bear on its back.
How well she Embroiders!
With what grace!
On the straw-colored cloth she would embroider
the flowers of her fancy.
What a sunflower!

What magnolias of spangles and ribbons!
What saffron and what moons
on the cloth from the mass!
Five citrons are candied in a nearby kitchen.
The five wounds of Christ cut in Almeria.
In the eyes of the nun
two horsemen gallop.
A last muffled rumor
loosens her blouse,
and at the sight of clouds and mountains
in the distant stillness
her heart of sweet herbs
and sugar breaks.
Oh! What a steep plain
with twenty suns above!
What rivers walking upright
illuminate her visions.
But she keeps on with her flowers
while the light in the breeze
plays a game of chess
on her high grilled window.

-20-

ARREST OF ANTONITO EL CAMBORIO ON THE ROAD TO SEVILLE

Antonio Torres Heredia,
son and grandson of Camborios,
starts out for Seville
to the bull fights,
with a dry reed for a cane.

Dark as a copper-green moon,
he walks slowly and proudly.
His oily blue curls fall
shining into his eyes.

Half way down the road
he starts cutting round lemons
and throws them in the water
until the water turns golden.
And half way down the road
under the branches of an oak,
the Civil Guards on duty
marched him off, arm in arm.

The day passes slowly.
The afternoon hangs on one shoulder
and sweeps its bull-fighter's cape
over the sea and over the streams.

The olive groves await
the night of Capricorn,
while a little breeze on horseback
jumps over the hills of lead.

Antonio Torres Heredia,
son and grandson of Camborios,
without his reed of a cane,
walks between five guards
in three-cornered hats.

Antonio, what kind of a man are you?
If you were really a Camborio
you'd have made a fountain of blood
with five streams.

You're neither a legitimate Camborio

-26-

BALLAD OF ONE DOOMED

Loneliness without end!
The little eyes of my body
and the big eyes of my horse
never close at night
nor look the other way
where sleep, like thirteen boats,
tranguilly disappears
in the distance.

Instead, shields of wakefulness,
my eyes clean and hard
look toward a north
of metals and of cliffs
where my veinless body
consults decks of frozen cards.
Heavy water-oxen charge
boys who bathe in the
rippling moons of their horns.
And the hammers sing
on the somnambulous anvils
the insomnia of the rider
and the insomnia of the horse.

On the twenty-fifth of June
they said to Amargo,
Now, you may cut, if you wish,
the oleanders in your courtyard.
Paint a cross on your door
and put your name beneath it,
for hemlock and neittle
shall take root in your side
and needles of wet lime
eat at your shoe-leather
at night in the dark
in the mountains of magnet
where water-oxen drink
in the dreaming reeds.

-29-

that nightly comes nightly.

Saint Joseph and the Virgin
lost their castanets
and came looking for the gypsies
to see of they could find them.

The Virgin comes dressed
like a village Mayor's wife
in chocolate paper
with necklaces of almonds.

Saint Joseph seings his arms
under a silken cape.

Behind comes Pedro Domecq
with three sultans of Persia.

The half moon dreams
an ecstasy of cranes.

Banners and torches
invade the roof-tops.

In the looking-glasses sob
dancers without hips.

Water and shadow,
shadow and water
toward Jerez de la Frontera.

Oh, city of the Gypsies!
on all the corners, banners,
Put out your green lights
for the Civil Guards are coming.

Oh, city of the gypsies!
Who could see you and not remember you?
(Leave her far from the sea
with no combs for her hair.)

Two by two they ride
into the city in fiesta.
A rustle of straw-flowers
invades their cartridge belts.

Two by two they ride,
a shadow-show but doubled.