At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime made ready
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death and death alone
at five in the afternoon.
The wind carried away the cotton wool
at five in the afternoon.
And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel
at five in the after noon.
Now the dove and the leopard strive
at five in the afternoon.
And a thigh with a desolate horn
at five in the afternoon.
A bass tone breaks out
at five in the afternoon.
The bells of arsenic and the smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Silent groups on the outskirts
at five in the afternoon.
And the bull alone with an uplifted heart!
at five in the afternoon.
When the sweat of snow was coming
at five in the afternoon,
when the bull ring was covered with iodine
at five in the afternoon,
death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
At exactly five in the afternoon.
A coffin on wheels is his bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ears
at five in the afternoon.
Now the bull bellows thought his forehead
at five in the afternoon.
The room is iridescent with agony
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance the gangrene is now coming
at five in the afternoon.
A lily-trumpet through green groins
at five in the afternoon.
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon!
It was five by all the clocks!
It was the shadow of five in the afternoon!
I will not see it!
Tell the moon to come,
for I do not want to see the blood
of Ignacio on the sand.
I will not see it!
The moon wide open.
Horse of still clouds,
and the dream's grey bull ring
with willows in the barreras.
I will not see it!
Let my memory Ignite!
Warm the jasmines
with their small whiteness!
I will not see it!
The cow of the ancient world
passed her sad tongue
over a snout of blood
spilled on the sand,
and the bulls of Guisando,
partly death and partly stone,
bellowed like two centuries
tired of treading the earth.
No.
I will not see it!
Ignacio climbs up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He was seeking the dawn,
and the dawn did not exist.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream confuses him.
He was seeking his beautiful body
and encountered his open blood.
Do not ask me to see it!
I do not want to hear it gush
each time with dwindling strength:
that gush which illuminates
the tiers of the seats and spills
over the corduroy and the leather
of the thirsty multitude.
Who shouts for me to come forward!
Do not ask me to see it!
His eyes did not shut
when he saw the horns near,
but the terrible mothers
lifted their heads.
And across the cattle-ranches,
a breeze of secret voices rose,
shouting to celestial bulls,
ranchers of pale mist.
There was no prince in Seville
who could compare to him,
nor a sword like his sword
nor a heart so true.
Like a river of lions
was his astonishing strength,
and like a marble torso
his finely delineated discretion.
The air of Andalusian Rome
gilded his head
where his smile was a salve
of wit and intelligence.
What a great bull-fighter in the ring!
What a good rancher in the sierras!
How gentle with the sheaves!
How hard with the spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling the fair!
How tremendous with the final
banderillas of darkness!
But now he sleeps without end.
Now the moss and the grass
with sure fingers unfold
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes singing;
singing along marshes and meadows
sliding along frozen horns,
faltering soulless in the mist,
stumbling over a thousand hoofs
like a long, dark, sad tongue
to form a pool of agony
beside the starry Guadalquivir.
Oh, white wall of Spain!
Oh, black bull of sorrow!
Oh, hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh, nightingale of his veins!
No.
I will not see it!
There is no chalice to hold it,
there are no swallows to drink it,
there is no frost of light to cool it,
there is no song nor deluge of white lilies,
there is no glass to coat it with silver.
No.
I will not see it!
The stone slab is a forehead where dreams groan
without winding waters and frozen cypresses.
The stone slab is a shoulder to transport time
With trees of tears and ribbons and planets.
I have seen grey showers run towards the waves
raising their tender riddled arms,
to avoid being caught by the outstretched stone
which loosens their limbs without soaking up their blood.
For the stone gathers seed and clouds,
larks' skeletons and wolves of twilight;
but gives no sound, nor crystals, nor fires,
only bullrings and bullrings and more bullrings without walls.
Now, Ignacio the well born lies on the stone.
It is all over. The rain enters though his mouth.
The air, in a frenzy, leaves his sunken chest,
and Love, soaked through with tears of snow,
warms itself at the top of the herd.
What are they saying? A stinking silence settles down.
We are here with a laid out body which is fading away,
with a pure form which had nightingales
and we see it filling up with bottomless holes.
Who is ruffling the shroud? It is not true what he says!
Nobody is to sing here, or weep in the corner,
or prick his spurs, or scare the serpent:
Here I want only my round eyes
to see his body without a possibility of rest.
Here I want to see those men of hard voice.
Those that break horses and dominate rivers;
those men whose skeletons vibrate and who sing
with mouths full of sun and flint.
Here I want to see them. Before this stone.
Before this body with broken reins.
I want them to show me a way out
for this captain constrained by death.
I want them to show me a lament like a river
with sweet mists and steep banks,
to bear the body of Ignacio and let him disappear
without hearing the double snorting of the bulls.
Let him disappear in the round bullring of the moon
which feigns in its youth a mournful quiet bull;
let him disappear in the night without the song of fishes
and in the white thicket of frozen smoke.
I don't want his face to be covered with handkerchiefs
so he can get used to the death he carries.
Go, Ignacio. Feel not the hot bellowing
Sleep, soar, rest: even the sea dies!
The bull does not know you or the fig tree,
nor the horses nor the ants of your house.
The child does not know of you nor the afternoon
because you have died forever.
The loin of the stone slab does not know you
nor the black satins in which you crumble.
Your silent memory does not know you
because you have died forever.
The autumn will come with caracolas,
grapes of mist and bunched up hills,
but no one will want to look into your eyes
because you have died forever.
Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of deceased dogs.
Nobody knows you. No. But I sing for you.
I sing for posterity of your profile and your grace.
The noble maturity of your understanding.
Your appetite for death and its taste in your mouth.
The sadness of your once valiant gaiety.
Not for a long time, if ever, will be born
an Andalusian so noble, so rich in adventure.
I sing of his elegance in words that moan,
and I remember a sad breeze though the olive trees.