1.

Crossing rivers of time,
without pay, for nothing at all,
I, dreamless, looking for you.
Behind me, imperceptible,
without brushing my shoulders,
you, death angel, watch and ask:
“Where is that Paradise, 
shadow, lately your home?”
Silent cities, without answer,
rivers without speech, summits
with no echo, silent seas—say I, 
Nobody knows home. Fixed men 
standing on the shore stopped
at tombs, 
ignore me. The birds are dejected,
songs etched in chipping bone, 
in joy running the course
blindly. They know nothing.
Without the sun, ancient winds,
inert in the leagues
for walking, charred for climbing
and falling
backwards, all speak few words.
Broken down and watery the 
truth hidden in wells within us,
heaven runs in streams from inside us.
And, at salty mariner’s sign of Earth’s end, 
over jutting chalk, cliffs of cloud and water
our eyes rolling back
find me just one safe drop of hope—
that potable, greenest flowering cache
I seek in the black abyss.

2.

In the shadowlands
where the world keeps seed; our children,
confused–grown between the centuries!
They can’t go back, they wish they could! 
What terror known without speaking–
how very lost I am, my love.
“Dark angel, awaken.”
            Where are you? 
“Strike match, illume your ray; return.”
Return.
Silence. 
Still more motionless the pulses 
of the endless in the night.
Lost paradise!
Lost to look for you,
I, without lamp light forever.

Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi