Night Piece

By Juan Ramón Jiménez 1881–1958 Juan Ramon Jimenez

Translated By Robert Bly

February 3rd

The sea with no waves we recognize,

with no stations on its route,

only water and moon, night after night!

My thought goes back to the land,

someone else’s land, belonging to the one

going through it on trains at night,

through the same place at the same hour

as before . . .

Remote mother,

sleeping earth,

powerful and faithful arms,

the same quiet lap for all

—tomb of eternal life

with the same decorations freshened—

earth, mother, always

true to yourself, waiting for

the sad gaze

of the wandering eyes!

My thought goes back to the land,

—the olive groves at sunrise—

outlined sharply in the white

or golden or yellow moonlight,

that look forward to the coming back

of those humans who are neither its slaves nor its masters,

but who love it anyway . . .

Source: Lorca and Jimenez: Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1973)

Biography

A prolific Spanish poet, editor, and critic, Juan Ramón Jiménez won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1956. He was born in Moguer i Andalusia, an area that he depicted in Platero y Yo (Platero and I, 1914) a collection of prose poems about a man and his donkey. Jiménez’s other books of poetry include Elejías puras (Pure Elegies, 1908), La soledad sonora (Sonorous Solitude, 1911), Poesía (Poetry, 1923), and Belleza (Beauty, . . .

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