YERMA. We’ve no children. …Juan!
JUAN. What is it?
YERMA. I love you, don’t I?
JUAN. Yes, you love me.
YERMA. I know girls who trembled and cried before getting into bed with their husbands. Did I cry the first time I went to bed with you? Didn’t I sing as I turned back the fine linen bedclothes? And didn’t I tell you, “These bedclothes smell of apples!”
JUAN. That’s what you said!
YERMA. My mother cried because I wasn’t sorry to leave her. And that’s true! No one ever got married with more happiness. And yet…
JUAN. Hush! I have a hard-enough job hearing all the time that I’m…
YERMA. No. Don’t tell me what they say. I can see with my own eyes that that isn’t so. The rain just by the force of its falling on the stones softens them and makes weeds grow weeds which people say aren’t good for anything. “Weeds aren’t good for anything,” yet I see them plainly enough moving their yellow flowers in the wind.
From “Yerma” by Federico Garcia Lorca
Federico Garcia Lorca is one of the world’s greatest poets. On August 12, 1936, his liberal ideas and antifascism prompted Franco’s forces to detain him and assassinate him at 38. He was also a brilliant playwright. In Yerma, he addresses a universal topic: childless marriages and women’s desire to give birth. Federico Garcia Lorca uses his poetic skills to get into our minds and touch our hearts, “Weeds grow weeds which people say aren’t good for anything. “Weeds aren’t good for anything,” yet I see them plainly enough moving their yellow flowers in the wind.”
