Lorca's house in the outskirts of Granada Today I gave a travel presentation at work about Spain and I included this sonnet from one of Spain's greatest poets/playwrights, Federico Garcia Lorca. It's full of visual imagery which not only gives the reader the ability to see what he's written but it also leads the mind of the reader in search of meaning. Sonnet of Sweet Complaint Never let me lose the marvel of your statue-like eyes, or the accent the solitary rose your breath places on my cheek at night. I am afraid of being, on this shore, a branchless trunk, and what I most regret is having no flower, pulp, or clay for the worm of my despair. If you are my hidden treasure, if you are my cross, my dampened pain, if I am a dog, and you alone my master, never let me lose what I have gained, and adorn the branches of your river with leaves of my estranged Autumn. The original Spanish version below is from http://www.poesia-inter.net/fglso107.htm Soneto
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” - James Michener