Gacela of the Dead Child
Gacela of the Dead Child - meaning Summary
Grief Recurring Each Afternoon
Lorca’s poem presents recurring, ritualized loss in Granada: each afternoon a child dies and the landscape participates in mourning. Water recurs as both agent and witness, transforming hills, valleys and a drowned body into surreal, mournful images. The speaker encounters a beloved or symbolic child dead by the river, and the natural world—wind, lilies, moss—blends with grief to suggest inevitable, communal sorrow and fragile beauty in death.
Read Complete AnalysesEach afternoon in Granada, Each afternoon, a child dies. Each afternoon the water sits down And chats with its companions. The dead wear mossy wings. The cloudy wind and the clear wind Are two pheasants in flight through the towers, And the day is a wounded boy. Not a flicker of lark was left in the air When I met you in the caverns of wine. Not the crumb of a cloud was left in the ground When you were drowned in the river. A giant of water fell down over the hills, And the valley was tumbling with lilies and dogs. In my hands’ violet shadow, your body, Dead on the bank, was an angel of coldness.
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