In light of insomnia, those truths
that day did not seem bad
(You're on top of a hill, you'll die,
or you have an appointment tomorrow you can not escape)
become slippery a set of caves.
Acts naked at noon nothing clarify
They have echo and shudder, appear and disappear.
Being alive is being crazy.

Can be? Goya is only able to paint such things.
The latter ocher paintings smudged in Madrid
a room filled with visions of insomnia,
in rapid Spanish as a curse.
Prayer is a joke, love secretion;
the tortured torture and bad becomes worse.

"Spanish Sonnets" by John Updike.

When a few years ago José María Carrascal Moreno wrote telling me that I was selecting and translating, selflessly, poems written by me, the news caused me a good impression for several reasons. The Spanish language is, after English, which has more speakers from those of Europe; both they have also achieved a high achievement in the strictly literary, and what is even more important, some of the writers in Spanish, Cervantes, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Salvador de Madariaga, Neruda, Borges (some of whose poems dared not without help translate), Camilo Jose Cela, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa have obtained, over the years, pleasure, admiration and courage.
To the above must be added a personal note: my mother was a Hispanophile determined to write a novel about Ponce de Leon, the conqueror and discoverer, in 1513, La Florida. Research for his novel took my mother, on three separate occasions, in Spain, the third of which, in 1977, was accompanied by me and my youngest daughter, who was then 16 years. On that trip I did serve as driver and guide, so when night came because of my serious day responsibilities, I was difficult to sleep; so I decided to take advantage of those sleepless hours writing sonnets, one per day. I think those eight "Spanish Sonnets" form, in my opinion, one of my most successful poetic achievements.