THE ALHAMBRA IN GRANADA TO THE VIRTUAL POETS

The IV Meeting of Poetry in the Network has had
 place in Granada on March 26, 2011

The Alhambra in Granada to the Virtual Poets

They raised my walls only
for poets
to extol my beauty.

My walls are built of poetry.
My towers, my battlements and my fountains
are made of verses.
My bricks are poems about poems.

I am an invisible city,
closed to most and open for the few.
Multitudes come up against my walls.
Few see the spirit behind my adobe.

Thanks for coming, virtual poets!
Each one of you is a tower.
Your verses are a parallel Alhambra.

To me poets come in space.
Poets on earth
camp on the outskirts.

Poets on earth are slaves.
They have to cross police and borders
and never sing when they want.

Poets in space live without ties.
They sing what they love
at the time they love.

Poets on earth, when they want to sing,
go to a publisher.
Poets in space just click.
Poets on earth
when they want to practice as poets,
kneel before a bard.
Poets in space simply enter the network.
Poets on earth form squads
and are wounded in battle.
Poets in space abhor armies
are solitary, think, love and sleep in peace.

You, virtual poets, poets in space,
don’t emulate the poets on earth!
You are the Alhambra of poetry.
The Alhambra does not love to be New York.
Poets on earth go to New York
but poets in space come to the Alhambra.

Can not you see I guard my secrets jealously?
How rough I am on the outside and sublime on the inside?
Poets on earth do not know themselves.
Poets in space dig to find themselves.

Only you can be yourself
free of glamour and glory.
Avoid black holes
and come to me!
In my garden flourishes
the secret music that defines you.

Continue as you are, poets in space!
You've got it all.
Your ambits are invisible
as the soul is invisible.

Poets on earth
betray and sell themselves.
How are you going to betray yourselves
if the miracles flow from your hands?
If you are everywhere
and you have overcome time?
Alone with your magic mouse
you build invisible walls
with invisible verses
that build invisible towers
inhabited by magic.

You have not come to me by chance.
I ask that you are
as firm as my foundations;
as unaffordable as my history;
as strong as my walls;
as sweet as my verses;
as ethereal, as mysterious
as the princes who lived in me.

A secret multitude lives in my palace.
A multitude of souls
that seek, love and embrace
as you in the Internet.

Look in the mirror, virtual poets!
And you will see me.
And you will see how I am.
My face is yours.
Welcome to my kingdom!
Take my magic!
Give me yours!

Gregorio Morales

Translated from the Spanish by Gordon Mason