You Hated Spain Ted Hughes
Spain frightened you.
Spain.
Where I felt at home.
The blood-raw light,
The oiled anchovy faces, the African
Black edges to everything, frightened you.
Your schooling had somehow neglected Spain.
The wrought-iron grille, death and the Arab drum.
You did not know the language, your soul was empty
Of the signs, and the welding light
Made your blood shrivel.
Bosch Held out a spidery hand and you took it
Timidly, a bobby-sox American.
You saw right down to the Goya funeral grin
And recognized it, and recoiled
As your poems winced into chill, as your panic
Clutched back towards college America.
So we sat as tourists at the bullfight
Watching bewildered bulls awkwardly butchered,
Seeing the grey-faced matador, at the barrier
Just below us, straightening his bent sword
And vomiting with fear. And the horn
That hid itself inside the blowfly belly
Of the toppled picador punctured
What was waiting for you. Spain
Was the land of your dreams: the dust-red cadaver
You dared not wake with, the puckering amputations
No literature course had glamorized.
The juju land behind your African lips.
Spain was what you tried to wake up from
And could not. I see you, in moonlight,
Walking the empty wharf at Alicante
Like a soul waiting for the ferry,
A new soul, still not understanding,
Thinking it is still your honeymoon
In the happy world, with your whole life waiting,
Happy, and all your poems still to be found.
Spain.
Where I felt at home.
The blood-raw light,
The oiled anchovy faces, the African
Black edges to everything, frightened you.
Your schooling had somehow neglected Spain.
The wrought-iron grille, death and the Arab drum.
You did not know the language, your soul was empty
Of the signs, and the welding light
Made your blood shrivel.
Bosch Held out a spidery hand and you took it
Timidly, a bobby-sox American.
You saw right down to the Goya funeral grin
And recognized it, and recoiled
As your poems winced into chill, as your panic
Clutched back towards college America.
So we sat as tourists at the bullfight
Watching bewildered bulls awkwardly butchered,
Seeing the grey-faced matador, at the barrier
Just below us, straightening his bent sword
And vomiting with fear. And the horn
That hid itself inside the blowfly belly
Of the toppled picador punctured
What was waiting for you. Spain
Was the land of your dreams: the dust-red cadaver
You dared not wake with, the puckering amputations
No literature course had glamorized.
The juju land behind your African lips.
Spain was what you tried to wake up from
And could not. I see you, in moonlight,
Walking the empty wharf at Alicante
Like a soul waiting for the ferry,
A new soul, still not understanding,
Thinking it is still your honeymoon
In the happy world, with your whole life waiting,
Happy, and all your poems still to be found.
Odiaste España
España te asustó. Esa Españadonde me sentí como en casa. La luz de cruda sangre,
las oliváceas y salitrosas caras, los negros
confines africanos de todo te asustaron.
En tus estudios de algún modo se había obviado España.
Las rejas de hierro forjado, la muerte y los tambores árabes.
No conocías el idioma, tu alma estaba vacía
de señales y la luz abrasadora
te secó la sangre. El Bosco
te extendió su arácnida mano y tímidamente
la tomaste, tú, una adolescente americana.
Miraste fijamente hacia el rictus funeral de Goya
y lo reconociste y diste un paso atrás
mientras tus poemas se encogían de frío y tu pánico
se aferraba a la América universitaria.
Vimos como turistas una corrida
observando la torpe carnicería de los toros aturdidos,
mirando al matador de rostro gris, detrás de la barrera,
justo debajo de nosotros, preparando el estoque
y vomitando miedo. Y el cuerno
que se hundió en la barriga de moscón
del picador derribado perforó
lo que te esperaba. España
era el país de tus sueños, el cadáver de polvo rojizo
con el que no te atrevías a despertar, los muñones
que ningún curso de literatura había embellecido.
La tierra de embrujos tras tus labios africanos.
España era lo que intentabas despertar
y no podías. Te veo, a la luz de la luna,
paseando por el muelle vacío de Alicante
como un alma esperando el barco,
un alma nueva, que aún no comprende,
pensando todavía que está en su luna de miel
y en el mundo feliz, la vida entera aún por llegar,
feliz, y todos tus poemas aún por descubrir.
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