I Wish I Wrote This

The Dawn

By Federico García Lorca 1898–1936


Dawn in New York
has four columns of filth
and a hurricane of black doves
splashing in putrid waters.


Dawn in New York whimpers
down the huge stairs
seeking in the chaff
flowers of sketched anguish.


Dawn comes and no one recieves it in his mouth
because there is no tomorrow or possibility of hope.
Sometimes furious swarms of coins
drill and devour the abandoned children.


The first to leave understand in their bones
there'll be no paradise or leafless loves;
they know they go to the filth of numbers and laws,
to artless games, to fruitless sweat.


The light is buried by noises and chains
in the obscene challenge of rootless science.
In the neighborhoods are people who wander unsleeping
like survivors of a shipwreck of blood.