Lorca speaks of Granada as a city of two rivers, a city of two valleys. The Genil river, “crowned with poplars” and the Dauro river, “crowned with lilies”. Curiously he comes from a town also bathed by two rivers, the Genil and Cubillas.
Isabel García Lorca recalls in her book Recuerdos míos (My Memories) how at the end of the street where they first lived in Granada, the Acera del Darro, the two rivers converged. The Darro is an underground river, from Plaza Nueva until it flows into the Genil. When the family lived in Acera del Darro, the river was not yet covered in this last stretch. Lorca will dedicate a juvenile poem to them El Dauro and the Genil (Lorca prefers, instead of Darro, the word Dauro, closer to the supposed etymology of the word, related to the gold that could be found in this river).
The two rivers are very different for Federico, the Genil is related to joy, its tree being the poplar, while the Darro is related to death, its tree being the cypress. Granada has this culture of water (rivers, fountains, spouts, cisterns…) because of its Arab past. Lorca is the poet of water not only because of Granada, but because of his origins in the village of Fuente Vaqueros, also called La Fuente (The Fountain).