Elegy
— In Orihuela, his town and mine, I have lost to death, as when lightning strikes, Ramón Sijé, with whom I so loved …
I want to be the gardener,
weeping, my fingers furrowing the soil
you make rich now, gone so early, my partner,
my friend. I have no tool
to dig with and my sorrow
must nourish my organs, and the snails,
and these late showers.
I’ll feed the desolate poppies with your heart.
The pain of you burrows
into my side until it hurts
simply to breathe. An icy blow,
a sudden fist, a murderous
swinging axe has laid you low
and I weep for this disgrace
and the thousand things that follow
without end. This gaping wound won’t be crossed
and I feel your death more
than I do this life. Without comfort, dispossessed,
I walk above the littered
dead, leaving my heart behind,
attending to matters
of the day. So soon death ascends,
so soon the darkness of the dawning dawn.
So soon you were driven to the ground.
I won’t forgive death, fawning
over you. I won’t forgive this careless life or this soil.
I won’t forgive Oblivion.
*
Up from my hands a storm is roiling–
lightning and stones and the axe’s blade.
I thirst for chaos, hunger for turmoil —
I want this earth unmade.
And I will dig, with these teeth, mouthful
by mouthful, the hot dry dirt until I’ve laid out
at last, and I can kiss at last, your noble skull
and unwind your sheet and claim you.
And you will come back, your bee-like soul,
back to this garden and my frame-work
of flowers to flutter across this orchard
of figs and the waxy chambers
of the hive, returned, adored
by the farmhands, back to the plough’s
digging hum. Then I’ll be cheered
once more, the shadows of my brow
washed away, your girlfriend and the bees
taking up again their quarrelsome vows
over the awkward symmetries
of your blood. And when your heart, its thin-worn velvet,
is called to the almond trees
foaming with blossoms, it’s my voice, selfish
and full of longing sending
for it – come back I’ll tell it,
back once more to the opened wings
of the rose, for we must talk of many things,
you and I, you and I, you my dearest friend.
* * * * *
Miguel Hernández’s moving “Elegia” honors Ramón Sijé (José Ramón Marín Gutiérrez), Hernández’s childhood friend, fellow writer, and champion of Hernández’s work. More than a lament, the elegy is a declaration of their fused sensibilities. The poem’s epigraph establishes this in three ways. First, it invokes their shared background: “su pueblo y el mio,” ie, “his town and mine.” Second, it invokes their joint passions: “con quien tanto quiera,” sometimes translated as “whom I loved,” but, more precisely, “with whom I loved.” And third, it declares Hernández’s personal involvement: “se me ha muerto,” that is, “I have lost to death.”
Hernandez included “Elegía” in his second poetry collection, El rayo que no cesa, (The Lightning That Doesn’t End), a book comprised mostly of sonnets, none of them dated. Hernández, however, documents his grief over Sijé’s sudden death by dating the poem’s quick completion — January 10, 1936 — just 17 days after Sijé’s sudden death from an intestinal infection on December 24..
Hernández, a member of an anti-fascist brigade (and at one point freed from jail partly through the intervention of Pablo Neruda — who would say of Hernández, “Few poets are as generous and brilliant as the boy from Orihuela” — died of tuberculosis on March 28, 1942 at the age of 31, three years into a Franco-issued prison sentence. His terza rima-ed elegy appropriately begins with a wish to reclaim Sijé by digging into the earth.
* * * * *
Elegía
— En Orihuela, su pueblo y el mío, se me ha muerto como del rayo Ramón Sijé, con quien tanto quería.
Yo quiero ser llorando el hortelano
de la tierra que ocupas y estercolas,
compañero del alma, tan temprano.
Alimentando lluvias, caracolas
y órganos mi dolor sin instrumento.
a las desalentadas amapolas
daré tu corazón por alimento.
Tanto dolor se agrupa en mi costado,
que por doler me duele hasta el aliento.
Un manotazo duro, un golpe helado,
un hachazo invisible y homicida,
un empujón brutal te ha derribado.
No hay extensión más grande que mi herida,
lloro mi desventura y sus conjuntos
y siento más tu muerte que mi vida.
Ando sobre rastrojos de difuntos,
y sin calor de nadie y sin consuelo
voy de mi corazón a mis asuntos.
Temprano levantó la muerte el vuelo,
temprano madrugó la madrugada,
temprano estás rodando por el suelo.
No perdono a la muerte enamorada,
no perdono a la vida desatenta,
no perdono a la tierra ni a la nada.
*
En mis manos levanto una tormenta
de piedras, rayos y hachas estridentes
sedienta de catástrofes y hambrienta.
Quiero escarbar la tierra con los dientes,
quiero apartar la tierra parte a parte
a dentelladas secas y calientes.
Quiero minar la tierra hasta encontrarte
y besarte la noble calavera
y desamordazarte y regresarte.
Volverás a mi huerto y a mi higuera:
por los altos andamios de las flores
pajareará tu alma colmenera
de angelicales ceras y labores.
Volverás al arrullo de las rejas
de los enamorados labradores.
Alegrarás la sombra de mis cejas,
y tu sangre se irán a cada lado
disputando tu novia y las abejas.
Tu corazón, ya terciopelo ajado,
llama a un campo de almendras espumosas
mi avariciosa voz de enamorado.
A las aladas almas de las rosas
del almendro de nata te requiero,
que tenemos que hablar de muchas cosas,
compañero del alma, compañero.