Thinking of Lorca, of duende, as I often do, and about my love of speaking, reading and translating Spanish, somehow my love of my love, la poesía, glanced at me from the other room, and then came walking through the door. In the poem, the phrase qué lástima!, which I say with a grateful smile, means What a pity!
con amor
La Poesía
Rumi said it best,
there are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the ground,
but if poetry’s your disease
then poetry’s the cure—
qué lástima! the treasure of
a hopeless situation—
like all first love,
it never ends.