Reds

it’s raining on the Río de la Plata and it’s almost
36 years since they killed Federico García Lorca but
what’s the relationship between that
outer reality and this inner unreality? or
what’s the relationship between that outer unreality
and this inner reality?
 
I don’t know the river’s gray line  
looks like the knife with which they slit the sky
looks like the knife with which they slit childhoods in Azul
slit childhoods in Santa Fe and other places in the republic
sometimes forever or always forever
it’s one of the country’s great agonies
 
that’s for sure in the west
the sunsets are not inflamed by the sun here
children’s blood inflames the republic’s sunsets  
children from Salta children from Tucumán little angels
blood evaporated or fallen swept away by the sunset
each and every each and every day
 
and what’s that got to do the death of Federico García Lorca
with the execution of Federico García Lorca in Granada in 1936?
or the sunset in the west of Spain
that is inflamed not by the sun but from the blood
of Federico García Lorca poet
each and every each and every day
 
I don’t know I don’t know
“child, you’re going to fall into the river!” said Federico García Lorca
“when he was lost in the water I understood” said Federico García Lorca
“within the rose there’s another river” said Federico García Lorca
but why does his blood inflame
Granada each and every day every day?
 
and the children of Azul Santa Fe Tucumán Salta
why do they inflame the sky of the republic
beneath which they have forgotten them or pretend to forget?
why did they fall into the river were lost
in the water went to the river of another rose from
ugly poverty?
 
what’s the relationship between that
outer reality and this inner unreality? or
what’s the relationship between that outer unreality
and this inner reality?
when did they kill Federico García Lorca in Tucumán?
when was he shot in Azul Santa Fe Salta?

Juan Gelman

(Translated by John Lyons)

In this poem, Juan Gelman – of Ukrainian origin and one of Argentina’s greatest poet – draws a parallel between the murder of the poet Federico García Lorca by Franco’s fascist troops at the start of the Spanish Civil War and the slaughter of innocents in Argentina during the so-called Dirty War (the name used for the period of United States-backed state terrorism in Argentina from 1976 to 1983). Azul, Santa Fe, Salta and Tucumán are representative provinces of Argentina, though the military dictatorship spread terror throughout the country.