Elegy/ Elegía a Ramón Sijé
One of the most moving and beautiful elegies in Spanish literature is the one written by the Spanish poet Miguel Hernández on the unexpected death of his friend Ramón Sijé at the age of 22. They became friends in elementary school, sharing an interest in books, ideas, and conversation. Soon after they became friends, Miguel was pulled out of school by his father. As he didn’t support his son’s intellectual ambitions.
Luckily, friends like Ramón Sijé helped Hernández continue his self-education. They did so by lending him books and readings alloiwng him to study during his own time. In his elegy, Miguel expressed the sadness, pain, anger, and helplessness associated with loss and grief.
Miguel Hernández died of tuberculosis in 1942, at the age of 31, while imprisoned by the Franco regime for his participation on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War.
ELEGIA A RAMÓN SIJÉ
(En Orihuela, su pueblo y el mío, se me ha muerto como del rayo Ramón Sijé, a quien tanto quería.)
Tanto dolor se agrupa en mi costado,
a dentelladas secas y calientes.
compañero del alma, compañero. |
ELEGY
(In Orihuela, his town and mine, like lightning death took Ramón Sijé, whom I so loved.) I wish I was the gardener whose tears water the earth you fill and fertilize, my closest friend, so suddenly. With my useless grief nourishing the rains, the snails, and the body’s organs, I shall feed your heart to the wasting poppies. Grief bunches up in my ribs until just breathing is painful. A hard punch, a frozen fist, An invisible, homicidal ax-blow, A brutal shove has knocked you down. Nothing gapes wider than my wound. I cry over this disaster, over everything, and feel your death more than my life. I walk over the stubble of the dead, and without warmth or consolation from anyone I leave my heart behind, and mind my business. Death flew off with you too soon, dawn dawned too soon, you were put into earth too soon. I won’t forgive lovestruck death, I won’t forgive this indifferent life, I won’t forgive the earth, or anything. In my hands a torrent of rocks is brewing, lighting, vicious axes, thirsting and starved for catastrophe. I want to carve up the earth with my teeth, I want to break up the earth chunk by chunk in dry fiery mouthfuls. I want to mine the earth till I find you, and can kiss your noble skull, ungag and revive you. You’ll come back to my orchard, and my fig tree: high up in the blossoms your soul will flutter its wings, gathering the wax and honey of angelic hives. You’ll come back to the plow’s lullaby of lovestruck farmhands. You’ll bring light to my darkened face, and your blood will have to pulse back and forth between your bride and the bees. My greedy lovesick voice calls your heart, now crumpled velvet, to a field of frothy almond sprays. I call you to come to the flying souls of the milky blossoms because we have so many things to talk about, my friend, my very best friend. |
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Feature Image: Gabriel, On Unsplash. Creative Commons