Pueblo blanco [English translation]

Hung on a cliff

sleeps my white town

under a sky that, by dint

of never seeing the sea,

forgot to cry.

Through its alleys of dust and stone

by not passing, the war didn't pass.

Only the forgotten…

walks slowly bordering the narrow pass

where a flower doesn't grow

nor does the pastor move to new pastures.

The sacristan has seen

the priest get old.

The priest has seen the officer

and the officer the sacristan.

And my town later

saw the three die…

And I ask myself why people will be born

if being born and dying is indifferent.

From the harvest to the sowing

one lives in the tavern.

The godmothers murmured

their story in the doorstep

of their homes of lime.

And the women make bobbin

searching for, hidden behind the lace curtain,

this young man

that, night to night, they shaped in their mind.

Strong in order to be their man.

Tender for love…

They dream of him,

and he leaving far away

from his town. And the elderly

dream about dieing in peace,

and dying by dying,

they want to die in the sun.

Their mouths open to the heat, like lizards.

Half hidden behind a hat of esparto.

Escape ye tender people,

for this land is cursed,

and don't wait for tomorrow

that which wasn't told to thee yesterday,

for there is nothing to do.

Take thy mule, thy wife and thy gear.

Follow the path of the Hebrew people

and search for another moon.

Perhaps tomorrow fortune will favour.

And if it is thy turn to cry

it is better facing the sea.

If I could join myself

to a flight of doves,

and crossing hills

leave my town behind,

I swear for what I was

that I would leave from here…

But the dead are in captivity

and they won't allow us to leave from the cemetery.