IX
A Brief Funeral Prayer for a Hero of the Republic
(For Spanish translation click here)

A book at the edge of his dead waist,

a book sprouting from this corpse.

They took the hero away,

and his corporeal and sad mouth entered in our courage;

we all sweat, our navel a burden,

the wandering moons follow us;

the dead man, too, sweats from grief.

And a book, at the Battle of Toledo,

a book, behind a book, above a book, a book nevertheless,

was sprouting from the corpse.

Poetry of the purple cheekbones, between speaking or

remaining silent,

poetry in the moral letter accompanying

his heart.

The book remains, and nothing else

that there are no insects in the tomb,

and remains at the edge of his sleeve, the air soaking itself

and becoming gaseous, infinite.

All of us sweat, the navel on shoulders,

the dead man also sweating of sadness

and the book, I, myself, see it regretfully,

a book, behind a book, above a book,

sprouts from this corpse abruptly.

10 September 1937