Lullaby of the Onion
by Miguel Hernandez
The onion is frost
shut in and poor.
Frost of your days
and of my nights.
Hunger and onion,
black ice and frost
large and round.
My little boy
was in hunger’s cradle.
He was nursed
on onion blood.
But your blood
is frosted with sugar,
onion and hunger.
A dark woman
dissolved in moonlight
pours herself thread by thread
into the cradle.
Laugh, son,
you can swallow the moon
when you want to.
Lark of my house,
keep laughing.
The laughter in your eyes
is the light of the world.
Laugh so much
that my soul, hearing you,
will beat in space.
Your laughter frees me,
gives me wings.
It sweeps away my loneliness,
knocks down my cell.
Mouth that flies,
heart that turns
to lightning on your lips.
Your laughter is
the sharpest sword,
conqueror of flowers
and larks.
Rival of the sun.
Future of my bones
and of my love.
The flesh fluttering,
the sudden eyelid,
and the baby is rosier
than ever.
How many linnets
take off, wings fluttering,
from your body!
I woke up from childhood:
don’t you wake up.
I have to frown:
always laugh.
Keep to your cradle,
defending laughter
feather by feather.
Yours is a flight so high,
so wide
that your body is a sky
newly born.
If only I could climb
to the origin
of your flight!
Eight months old you laugh
with five orange blossoms.
With five little
ferocities.
With five teeth
like five young
jasmine blossoms.
They will be the frontier
of tomorrow’s kisses
when you feel your teeth
as weapons,
when you feel a flame
running toward your gums
driving toward the centre.
Fly away, son, on the double
moon of the breast:
it is saddened by onion,
you are satisfied.
Don’t let go.
Don’t find out what’s happening,
or what goes on.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Black Pine Tree In An Orange Light by Sylvia Plath
- Вера Павлова – Снег
- Владимир Маяковский – Разговор с товарищем Лениным
- The Gardener LV: It Was Mid-Day by Rabindranath Tagore
- In Snow by William Allingham
- Book Eleventh: France [concluded] by William Wordsworth
- Now Hollow Fires Burn Out to Black poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- Fly Fly Butterfly
- In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune
- Tis Time, I Think, By Wenlock Town poem – A. E. Housman
- Seashore by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Coo Of The Cushat
- Prize poem – Amanda James DIll poems | Poems and Poetry
- Олег Григорьев – Слезы
- Edgar Allan Poe by Timothy Thomas Fortune
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
