HERNANDEZ, Miguel

I have a need for your voice

I have a need for your voice
a longing for your company,

and an ache of melancholy

for the absence of signs of arrival.

Patience requires my torment,

the urgent need for you, heron of love,

your solar mercy for my frozen day,

your help, for my wound, I count on.

Ah, need, ache and longing!

Your kisses of substance, my food,

fail me, and I’m dying with the May.

I want you to come, the flower of your absence,

to calm the brow of thought

that ruins me with its eternal lightning.


Love ascended between us

Love ascended between us

like the moon between two palm-trees

that have never embraced.

The intimate murmur of our two bodies

made the cooing the sea-swell brings,

but the hoarse voice was stifled,

the lips turned to stone.

The yearning to encircle moved our flesh

illuminated our inflamed bones,

but our arms’ desire to reach out

died away in our arms.

Love and the moon passed between us

and devoured our lonely bodies.

And we are two ghosts who search

and find each other from afar.