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
- Иван Варавва – Соловей на веточке
- The Wheel by William Butler Yeats
- If You Only Knew by Robert Desnos
- Robert Burns: Epigram To Miss Ainslie In Church: Who was looking up the text during sermon.
- The Mortal One by Sharon Olds
- Matthew by William Wordsworth
- Николай Языков – Песня (Я жду тебя, когда вечерней мглою)
- When I Go Alone At Night by Rabindranath Tagore
- By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame. by Walt Whitman
- The Judge by Rabindranath Tagore
- Olney Hymn 31: On The Death Of A Minister by William Cowper
- Election Ballad at close of Contest for representing the Dumfries Burghs, 1790 by Robert Burns
- Ольга Седакова – Неужели, Мария, только рамы скрипят
- Sonnet: “It is not to be thought of” by William Wordsworth
- They Wondered Why the Fruit had Been Forbidden by W H Auden
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).
