Green as I would have you be.
Green wind. Green boughs.
The boat on the sea
And the horse on the mountain.
I remember reciting these lines to my professor, Dr. Richard O'Connell, translator with James-Graham Lujan of Five Plays by Lorca, and he smiled. "Whose translation is that?" he asked.
I told him, "Rolfe Humphries."
Doc, as we called him, looked a little uneasy. "Rolfe will forgive me if I say he got it wrong. It needs to be more like, 'Green, green, I want you green.'"
He emphasized it with his hands, clasping the air, grabbing at the invisible but palpable green. "Maybe desire is a better word than want," he said. "Have you heard it better?" he asked.
"Maybe I said, and I recited:
Green green rocky road
promenade in green
Tell me who you love
Tell me who you love
"That isn't Lorca!" Doc said.
"It's Len Chandler, folksinger-poet. I heard him sing his green song at The Gaslight in Greenwich Village in 1962. Len played the 12 string and he could really get you going with that song. Bob Dylan was usually in the audience."
"Who's that?" Doc asked.
Federico Garcia Lorca