A few days after the centenary of the birth Joseph Ironhis friend Andres Amoros wanted to remember it It’s morning Federico. He let it run to begin his special tribute, a precious poem Lifespan, “a baroque sonnet worthy of Quevedo”, read by Hierro himself. Says like this:
‘Cause everything was nothing
despite the fact that once it was all.
After nothing or after everything
I knew that everything was nothing more than nothing.
I shout “Everything!” and the echo says “Nothing!”
I scream “Nothing!” and the echo says “Everything!”
Now I know that nothing was everything
and everything was ashes from nowhere.
Nothing remains of what was nothing.
(It was an illusion that believed everything
and in the end it’s nothing).
What difference does it make that nothing was nothing
if nothing else, in the end,
after so many it’s all in vain.
Then he reminded him of how he had always been: “Ordinary person”. “Pepe was like that. He resisted entering the Academy, for example, because he said that, knowing nothing, he did not draw anything surrounded by so many scientists. And also that he lived his life without malice. “Obviously he was not a Francoist, but he made his life, he worked for Radio Nacional and never took offense at anything.” What he liked best, says his friend, “was till the field“. “His pride grew some of the wine he made with his own hands. He said that life is what gave him health. And his poetry, therefore, was also simple.He always ran from rhetoric“. To illustrate, read the poem: Requiem, and recommends any of his anthologies, such as those from the Austral collection. The poem goes like this:
Manuel del Rio natural
Spain, died on Saturday
May 11, as a result
from an accident. his corpse
lies on D’Agostino
Funeral service. Haskell. New Jersey.
Mass will be celebrated
at 9:30 in St. Francis.
This is the story that begins
with sun and stone and it ends
on the table, in D’Agostino,
with flowers and electric candles.
This is the story that begins
on the coast of the Atlantic.
Stay in the cabin
third, over the waves
– above the clouds – the earth
sank before Plato.
Find your end in America
with tap and clinic,
with note and mass
sung in the church of St. Francis.
(…).
Your grandparents
they fertilized the whole earth,
they plunged her into adventure.
When the Spaniard fell
The universe has been corrupted.
They were watching them not in D’Agostino
Funeral home, but between the fires,
between horses and weapons. Heroes
forever. face statues
erased. dresses more
his parrot color,
strength and fantasy.
He didn’t fall like that. he didn’t die
not beautiful madness.
(a long time ago the Spaniards
dies of anonymity and sanity,
or in heartbreaking madness
between brothers: when he strikes
skins of wine spills
fraternal blood). came one day
because their land is poor. Peace
Release me Domina – motherland.
And he died. He did not find cities.
He did not give his name to the sea. don’t do
more than die for seventeen
dollars (he would have thought they
in pesetas) Requiem aeternam.
And in D’Agostino they visit him
Poles, Irish,
Spaniards, those who die
on the weekend.
(…).
definitely everything
finished. his corpse
lies on D’Agostino
Funeral service. Haskell. New Jersey.
Mass will be celebrated
for his soul.
I have limited myself
display obituary here
from a New York newspaper.
Objectively. no flight
in verse Objectively.
Spaniard like millions
Spaniards. I didn’t tell anyone
that I was about to cry.