María by James Como

Translated from the Spanish by Evelyn Hooven (October 2022)

Summer Night, Harald Sohlberg, 1899

María

María of stars that burn white,
of the hidden moon,
of the sun that lights and warms,
and of the trees,
flowers and plants,
and of the earth that gives life,
María of the sea undulating and profound
that forms the soul and finally home,
Embrace me that at last I may sleep.

María

María de las estrellas que brillan blanco,
de la luna escondida,
del sol, que calienta e ilumina,
y de los árboles,
las plantas y las flores,
y de la tierra que da vida,
María del mar ondulado y profundo
que forma el alma y al fín da hogar,
abrázame para que yo pueda ya dormir.

Table of Contents

Evelyn Hooven graduated from Mount Holyoke College and received her M.A. from Yale University, where she also studied at The Yale School of Drama. A member of the Dramatists’ Guild, she has had presentations of her verse dramas at several theatrical venues, including The Maxwell Anderson Playwrights Series in Greenwich, CT (after a state-wide competition) and The Poet’s Theatre in Cambridge, MA (result of a national competition). Her poems and translations from the French and Spanish have appeared in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, ART TIMES, Chelsea, The Literary Review, THE SHOp: A Magazine of Poetry (in Ireland), The Tribeca Poetry Review, Vallum (in Montreal), and other journals, and her literary criticism in Oxford University’s Essays in Criticism.

James Como’s new book is Mystical Perelandra: My Lifelong Reading of C. S. Lewis and His Favorite Book (Winged Lion Press).

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