Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

Over the years I have cultivated a connection to poets. I not only read their poems and biographies, but make pilgrimages to their homes, delve into their archives. I feel closer to a poet when standing at their writing desk, or when, in the special collections room of a library, I pull out a handwritten note from a stored box — one that expresses exhilaration at publishing a first book, or anxiety at socializing at a literary gathering. These moments make it easy for me to see behind the constructed persona of the poet, and come face-to-face with the hidden vulnerabilities, ambitions, and passions that make them human.

So when I was invited to stay in the historic farmhouse of poet Robert Frost, I could not resist. It was modestly furnished, with squeaky floorboards. In daylight, the surrounding property was a lush green; nights on the porch flashed deep with neon streaks of luna moths.

One evening, reading by a faint light, I heard flapping in an unlit corner. I looked up and saw nothing. The antique radio crackled. I stared more into the darkness. A second later, a huge bat swooped above my head. I leapt up. Its wingspan shadow reached across the small living room. It must have entered through the chimney. The bat flickered against the ceiling, seeking a way out. I ran to the kitchen, closed the door, and left it trapped, listening to classical music. I went upstairs to bed, but not before naming it.

The next morning, before a hike, I opened a window off the porch hoping the bat would eventually fly out. I said, “Alright Mr. Frost, time to go back to the land of the dead.” When I returned, the winged Robert Frost was balanced on the ledge. Seeing me, he squeaked then flew off.

Today’s poem has me recall that pilgrimage to the home of a cherished poet, whose mystery is the very fire that channels my faith in poetry as nothing less than pure feeling.

Gacela of the Dark Death
by Federico García Lorca, translated by Merryn Williams

I want to sleep the sleep of apples,
to leave behind the noise of cemeteries.
I want to sleep as did that child who wanted
to cut his heart on the high seas.

I do not want to hear again that corpses keep their blood,
nor of the thirst the rotting mouth can’t slake.
I do not want to know of the torments grass gives,
nor of the moon with a snake’s mouth
that toils before daybreak.

I want to sleep for a short time,
a short time, a minute, a hundred years;
but all should know that I have not died,
that there is a stable of gold on my lips,
that I am the friend of the west wind,
that I am the vast shadow of my tears.

Cover me with a veil, 
throw fistfuls of ants at me at dawn,
and wet my shoes with hard water,
that it may slide on pincers like a scorpion.

Because I want to sleep the sleep of apples,
to learn a lament that will purify me;
because I want to stay with that dark child who wanted
to cut his heart on the high seas.

“Gacela of the Dark Death” by Federico García Lorca, translated by Merryn Williams from FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA: SELECTED POEMS © 2021 Merryn Williams. Used by permission of Bloodaxe Books.