GACELA DEL AMOR QUE NO SE DEJA VER 

Solamente por oír

la campana de la Vela

te puse una corona de verbena.

Granada era una luna

ahogada entre las yedras.

Solamente por oír

la campana de la Vela

desgarré mi jardín de Cartagena.

Granada era una corza

rosa por las veletas.

Solamente por oír

la campana de la Vela

me abrasaba en tu cuerpo

sin saber de quién eres.

GAZELLE OF THE LOVE THAT WON'T BE SEEN

Just because I heard

the Watchtower bell

I crowned you Queen of the fête.

Granada was a moon

drowning in the ivy.

Just because I heard

the Watchtower bell

I laid my garden of Cartagena to waste.

Granada was a roe deer,

rose-coloured among the weather vanes.

Just because I heard

the Watchtower bell

I scorched myself on your body

not knowing who you belonged to.

This poem appears as Gacela IV in the collection Diván del Tamarit. I did the translation and René-Charles Hirt took the photo when he visited Granada in October 2003. It shows the torre de la Vela with its bell tower seen from Plaza Nueva. In less noisy times, the bell could be heard across and beyond the city and was rung to tell the cultivators on the Vega that it was time to change the irrigation sluices.