"Blood" ("La Sangre") is a poem in Spanish by Vincente Aleixandre, a member of the Spanish intellectual group called "The Generation of '27" and the 1977 Noble Laureate for Literature. It first appeared in "En Un Vasto Dominio", a collection published in Madrid in 1962, consisting, in part, of "a series of poems on parts of the body." (page 264). The present volume is a bilingual edition with the Spanish text on the left page and facing English translations by 15 different translators (including Willis Barnstone, Robert Bly and W. S. Merwin) on the right. The editor, Lewis Hyde, is a poet, translator and teacher of creative writing. He has also furnished an introduction to Aleixandre's work and the selections in this volume in particular, based in part on his personal acquaintance with the poet. Tomás O'Leary translated this poem, the only translation of his in the book. "Blood" has no formal elements or rhyme scheme. In a curiously casual voice, it describes the cycle (a word never used in this poem) that the blood makes in its journey from oxygenation in the lungs to the heart - nor are these organs mentioned by name in the Spanish text of the poem - and thence to all the near and remote cells of the body in order to deliver this beneficial oxygen. Once the blood has delivered its cargo, it completes the cycle by returning as de-oxygenated venous blood to the heart, the origin of the cycle, only to begin it, and the sustenance of life, anew.
