My boyhood is all memories of a patio in Sevilla, And how an orchard bore its share of lemons come the fall, My growing up: some twenty years in regions of Castilla The rest of it's a thing or two I'd rather not recall. I'm not a playboy, never been Don Juan or gone for Juliet. -You know I'd never fit the part. My style is dull and old- Yet Cupid had an arrow with my name and I endured it But only loved the girls I knew would have a friendly soul. Although my veins are pulsing blood enough for revolution My poetry comes flowing from some from a well that's calm and pure, And more than any guy around who knows the catichism, I'm truly "good" at heart in every good sense of the word. It’s beauty I aspire to. With the sheers of new asthetics I've cut some ancient roses from the garden of Ronsard, But I disdain that modernistic dappling of cosmetics, I'm not a fan of muses singing latest avant-garde. But hell with lovey-dovey tunes of certain hollow tenors, The choirs of unceasing crickets crooning at the moon. I quiet down to try and tell the voices from the echos, And out of all the voices heard I listen for just one. Am I romantic, or a classic? Don’t know. But I rather Would leave my poems somewhat as a captain leaves his blade: Famed for the manly hand whose fingers brandished it in battle And not the learned forger’s fist that had the metal made. I hold a conversation with a guy who's always with me -The man that talks alone may talk with God someday in grace- What I soliloquize is only chatting with this fellow Who taught me all the secret things of how to love my race. I don't owe you a thing, you see, you owe me for my writings. I go about my work with care. I scrimp and save to buy The clothes and suit that warm me up, the roof to bar the weather, The bread that helps me stay alive, the bed in which I lie. And when the day arrives when I must make the final voyage, The ship that never comes again will lift the anchor free. You'll find me boarded with the crew, with very little luggage With scarce a rag upon my back, like children of the sea.