Gacela of the Terrible Presence
Gacela of the Terrible Presence - form Summary
Gacela's Concentrated Lyric
This poem is cast in the Spanish Gacela, a brief, lyric form Lorca uses to condense passion and paradox. Its rapid, image-driven lines address an absent beloved with sudden shifts between natural and uncanny scenes. The form’s elliptical, aphoristic quality heightens emotional intensity and ambiguity, so desire, fear, and defiance sit side by side rather than resolving into argument or narrative, leaving a haunting, unresolved presence.
Read Complete AnalysesI want the river to lose its way. I want the wind to quit the valley. I want the night to lose its sight, and my heart its flower of gold; the cattle to speak to the great leaves, and the worm to die of shadows; the teeth on the skull to shine, and the silk to be drowned in yellows. I can see wounded midnight's duel struggling, knotted, with noon light. I resist the broken arch, where time suffers, and the green venom of twilight. But do not make a black cactus, open in reeds, of your nakedness. Leave me afraid of dark planets, but do not show me your calm waist.
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