Elegy
In Orihuela, his town and mine, Ramón Sijé, with whom I loved so deeply, has died as if struck by lightning,
I long to be the gardener, grieved with love,
who tills the soil where you, dear friend, reside
and feed too soon the trees that bloom above.
My melancholy, without aim or guide,
grim nourishment for roots, for shells, for rain,
I’ll give the burdened poppies by my side
the pieces of your heart that still remain.
Such is the vastness of the grief I know,
that even my own breathing brings me pain.
A covert fist of ice, a brutal blow,
a murderous and surreptitious thief,
a wicked strike has buried you below.
No pangs collect more deeply than my grief.
I weep for my misfortune—its broad spread—
and see your death in every falling leaf.
I walk among the remnants of the dead,
and without warmth from anyone, I rue,
vacillating between my heart and head.
Too soon death spread his wings; too soon he flew.
Too soon the early morning brought her light.
Too soon a body fell, and it was you.
I cannot forgive death, his stricken bite.
I cannot forgive life, she wasn’t there.
I cannot forgive earth, nor empty night.
With my two hands I stir a storm, I swear,
made up of axes, boulders, lightning, thunder,
bent on catastrophe and on despair.
I want my teeth to scratch the earth asunder,
to part the earth’s soil slowly, bite by bite,
each filled with burning drought, each one a plunder.
I want to search this landscape day and night,
to find and kiss your skull, so noble, strong,
and bring you back to life and hold you tight.
You’ll return to the farm where we belong.
Over the trellis of the flowering tree,
your hive-bound apian soul will buzz along,
singing of wax, the labor of the bee.
Beyond the cooing fence and lulling cows,
you’ll hear the love-struck farmers’ melody.
You’ll enliven the shadows of my brows.
Your blood will swell about and spread apart,
your fiancée and the bees, if love allows,
sharing your velvet heart, your tattered heart,
the very heart I summon to this ground.
My desperate voice is asking you to dart
toward where winged souls in rosebushes abound.
Of these; of the almond tree to which I tend;
of many other things that come around,
I need to speak with you, beloved friend.
My Name is Mud
My name is mud although I’m called Miguel.
Mud is my line of work and my intent,
which blackens with its tongue what makes it swell.
I am the beaten track’s sad instrument.
I am a mellow tongue, maligned, unwell,
unfurled before the feet I idolize.
Nocturnal ox of fallow land and creek
that longs to be a creature you might prize,
I charge against the edges of your shoes,
and made of carpets and of kisses, speak
sweet blossoms at your heel, my hurtful muse.
I place the relics of my kind again
before your biting heel, before your eyes,
and always I am waiting where you go,
so that your distant toe may show disdain
for all the love I raise toward your toe.
More humid than the semblance of my flow,
just as the woolly glass of winter bleats,
just as your window slithers down and shuts,
I bring before your feet a wing that beats,
a hawk’s wing stained with earthen heart and guts.
I bring before your feet a melted cane,
drenching with humble honey, coalesced;
a disregarded heart, collapsed in rain,
shaped like an alga, tilted like a crest.
Mud, it’s in vain I wear these poppies pressed.
Mud, it’s in vain I’m biting at your heel,
mud, it’s in vain I’m pouring out my parts,
delivering to you, with injured zeal,
convulsive toads resembling beating hearts.
As soon as you step on and leave the seal
of your manifestation over me,
the armored frame, the rugged cloak that girds
this silent mouth to flesh alive with words
fractures, imploring you to let it feel
your always hare-like foot, deranged and free.
The taciturn, dense cream is clustered now.
Your rueful sobbing agitates its grove,
its worn, cerebral wool, before your stroll.
And as you pass, its love,
igniting winter wax before nightfall,
is martyr, jewel, grass beneath the plow.
Sick of submitting to the pounding knock
when heavy hooves step through or wheels rotate,
dread that the mud will birth a feral flock
of caustic animals with claws of hate.
Dread that the mud might grow and rise, by chance,
dread that the mud might cover tenderly—
tender and jealously,
your reed-like ankle that now haunts its soul;
dread it might fill the spikenard of your stance,
and then grow more until it fills you whole.
Dread that the mud might rise as hurricane
over the soft terrain of winter’s splendor,
to burst and thunder and then fall in rain
over your neighborhood, severe but tender.
Dread an advance of the offended spume,
and dread an amatory storm, a flood.
Before the drought devours all its gloom,
mud will receive you as you turn to mud.
from The Unending Lightning
Miguel Hernández
translated from the Spanish by Pedro Poitevin
Listen to "Elegy" read in the original Spanish by the translator:
Miguel Hernández’s poetry has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up reading his work and hearing his verses transformed into song by Joan Manuel Serrat, whose 1972 album Miguel Hernández (Zafiro/Novola) helped solidify the poet’s place in the hearts of Latin Americans. Serrat’s music amplified a voice that is already powerful on its own, for Hernández’s mastery of form, visceral connection to popular traditions, and profound commitment to anti-fascism make him indispensable to the Spanish literary tradition. Hernández shows how meter and rhyme—far from being relics of an older era—can serve as tools of resistance and solidarity, thus celebrating the dignity of working-class life.
The profound influence Hernández has had on Spanish-language music underscores the connection between his poetry and the poetics of the people. Musicians ranging from Enrique Morente to Paco Ibáñez in Spain, and from Víctor Jara to Soledad Bravo in Latin America, have found in his verses a meeting point between formal artistry and political engagement. This widespread musical legacy points to what Juan José Téllez observed as Hernández’s “proximity to partitur,” a rhythmic and melodic quality that makes his work uniquely suited to song.
The two poems included here, both from El rayo que no cesa (Ediciones Héroe, 1936), illustrate Hernández’s lyrical sensibility. “Elegía” (Elegy), written in terza rima, draws on the tradition of Dante to articulate the contours of grief. For me, preserving this verse form was essential to the translation process, as the form contributes to the poem’s sense of continuity and flow, where each tercet carries the reader deeper into the emotional journey. Hernández transforms personal loss into a narrative of mourning grounded in the body and the earth, culminating in an ending that devastates with its stark simplicity.
In “Me llamo barro” (My Name is Mud), mud becomes a dynamic metaphor for identity, humble at the outset but ominously violent by the poem’s close. By allowing the full range of emotion contained within the image of mud—resilience, fragility, chaos—Hernández shows what John Keats called “negative capability.” Here, Hernández does not impose resolution but instead inhabits the instability and richness of the image, letting mud itself speak.
To translate Hernández is to grapple with his musicality, his visceral imagery, and his commitment to poetry as a form of engagement with the world. For me, this process has been both a challenge and a privilege, deepening my admiration for his ability to unite the personal and the universal.
The profound influence Hernández has had on Spanish-language music underscores the connection between his poetry and the poetics of the people. Musicians ranging from Enrique Morente to Paco Ibáñez in Spain, and from Víctor Jara to Soledad Bravo in Latin America, have found in his verses a meeting point between formal artistry and political engagement. This widespread musical legacy points to what Juan José Téllez observed as Hernández’s “proximity to partitur,” a rhythmic and melodic quality that makes his work uniquely suited to song.
The two poems included here, both from El rayo que no cesa (Ediciones Héroe, 1936), illustrate Hernández’s lyrical sensibility. “Elegía” (Elegy), written in terza rima, draws on the tradition of Dante to articulate the contours of grief. For me, preserving this verse form was essential to the translation process, as the form contributes to the poem’s sense of continuity and flow, where each tercet carries the reader deeper into the emotional journey. Hernández transforms personal loss into a narrative of mourning grounded in the body and the earth, culminating in an ending that devastates with its stark simplicity.
In “Me llamo barro” (My Name is Mud), mud becomes a dynamic metaphor for identity, humble at the outset but ominously violent by the poem’s close. By allowing the full range of emotion contained within the image of mud—resilience, fragility, chaos—Hernández shows what John Keats called “negative capability.” Here, Hernández does not impose resolution but instead inhabits the instability and richness of the image, letting mud itself speak.
To translate Hernández is to grapple with his musicality, his visceral imagery, and his commitment to poetry as a form of engagement with the world. For me, this process has been both a challenge and a privilege, deepening my admiration for his ability to unite the personal and the universal.
Miguel Hernández (1910–1942) was a Spanish poet and playwright whose work bridges the avant-garde Generation of ‘27 and the social poetry of postwar Spain. Born in Orihuela, Hernández is celebrated as el poeta campesino (the peasant poet) for his connection to rural life and working-class struggles. His masterpiece El rayo que no cesa (The Unending Lightning; Ediciones Héroe, 1936), is a cornerstone of Spanish literature, exploring themes of love, resilience, and justice. After the Spanish Civil War, Hernández was imprisoned but continued to write powerful poetry under brutal conditions. He died of tuberculosis in 1942, leaving a legacy that continues to inspire poets, musicians, and activists worldwide.
Pedro Poitevin is a bilingual poet, translator, and mathematician who was raised primarily in Guatemala. He is the author of six books, including Nowhere at Home (Penteract Press, 2023) and Letras griegas (Greek Letters; Praxis, 2022). His poetry and translations have appeared in Rattle, River Styx, and other journals. In 2021, his poem “Sueño de la cercanía” (Letras griegas, Praxis, 2022) earned the Juana Goergen Poetry Prize, and Philip Nikolayev’s translations of his Spanish-language poetry are forthcoming in The Common. Poitevin sees poetry as the dreamlife of language, where patterns reimagine tradition in a changing world. He is a professor of mathematics at Salem State University who is fond of saying he writes what he can and translates what he loves.
