Song of the Barren Orange Tree

.

Woodcutter.

Cut my shadow from me.

Free me from the torment 

of seeing myself without fruit.

Why was I born among mirrors?

The day walks in circles around me,

and the night copies me

in all its stars.

I want to live without seeing myself.

And I will dream that ants

and thistleburrs are my

leaves and my birds.

Woodcutter.

Cut my shadow from me.

Free me from the torment

of seeing myself without fruit.

~ Federico Garcia Lorca

from The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca

translated by W.S. Merwin