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
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- Hex by Rachel McKibbens
- Wandering Singers by Sarojini Naidu
- My Own Heart Let Me Have More Have Pity On; Let poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Far Within Us #7 by Vasko Popa
- Easter Snow by Winifred Mary Letts
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Южная ночь
- Владимир Маяковский – Нам бы только вот это воскресити… (РОСТА)
- Fire, Famine, And Slaughter : A War Eclogue by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Chain Of Pearls by Rabindranath Tagore
- Низами Гянджеви – Спустилась ночь
- Наум Коржавин – Он собирался многое свершить
- Spenserian Stanzas On Charles Armitage Brown poem – John Keats poems
- Огюст Барбье – Бук
- Нина Воронель – Вечная мерзлота
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).
