“Fascinated by the rituals of the Church, Federico soon began to imitate them in his own way….

One of his favorite games was ‘saying Mass’ …In the back yard of the house there was a low wall on which the child placed a statue of the Virgin and some roses cut from the garden. Servants. family, friends—they were all made to sit down in front of the wall while Federico, wrapped in an odd assortment of garments culled from the attic, would ‘say Mass’ with enormous conviction. Before he began he imposed a sole condition: that it was the obligation of the congregation to weep during the sermon .”

—from Ian Gibson’s Federeco Garcia Lorca: A Life.

A letter from Garcia to Lorca to Adriano Del Valle y Rossi, May, 1918] [DK note: he was 20. This is how he dates the letter: “May today in
time and October above my head”]

…. in the depths of my being there is a powerful desire to be a little
child. very humble and very retiring. Ahead I see many problems. many
eyes which will imprison me, many difficulties in the battle between
heart and head, and my emotional flowering wants to take possession of
its sunlit garden and I make an effort to enjoy playing with the dolls
and toys of my childhood, and sometimes I lie on my back on the floor
and play comadricas with my baby sister (I adore her)*

[comadricas is a game of imitating the neighbors’ gossip] Below, Lorca at 16 with his sister Isabella

I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to be almost touching me; I went on living in careless ease without trying to understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from life, and time went on and on. . . . People passed by me with their love, bright days and warm nights flashed by, the nightingales sang, the hay smelt fragrant, and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like mist. . . . Where is it all?  My father is dead, I have grown older; everything that delighted me, caressed me, gave me hope — the patter of the rain, the rolling of the thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love — all that has become nothing but a memory, and I see before me a flat desert distance; on the plain not one living soul, and out there on the horizon it is dark and terrible. . . .     [from “A Lady’s Story” by Chekhov]

hay solo tu Mirada para tanto vacio,
solo tu claridad pare no seguir siendo,
solo tu amor para cerrar la sombra                          

 [ Cien sonetos de amor (XC) by Pablo Neruda] [Ay! There is only your face to fill up the vacancy,
Only your clarity pressing back on the whole of my non-being,
Only your love, where the dark of the world closes in]