I was in high school. I remember hearing the news. I remember being reminded of his brother, JFK. I remember taking a black wool sweater from my closet and wearing it to school. I remember the curious looks of my classmates, wondering why I was wearing colors of mourning. Few if anyone around me understood.
You see, at the time, I was still living in Mexico. It would be days still before the full impact of the tragedy would become clear to the adults around me, to say nothing of my classmates.
But I knew who he was. I knew how important he was. I knew that history would take a different path then, into unseen and unknown territory.
So today, I offer as tribute, this poem translated from Spanish to English, by a Spanish poet, written for a friend also murdered.
The Weeping Gardener
By Miguel Hernández
I want to be
the weeping gardener
of the ground you occupy,
and compost so early,
my soul mate.
To feed the garden snails in the rain,
organ of my voiceless pain,
surrendering your heart as food,
to the disheartened roses.
Such pain clumps in my chest,
that breath is agony.
A hard fist, an icy blow,
an axe strike, homicidal and unseen,
a brutal push tumbled you.
There is no wider chasm than my wound,
I cry to misfortune and her companions,
I feel your death, more than my life.
Unkempt and unshaved,
without warmth or consolation,
I tend to my affairs soullessly.
Death took flight early,
and early came the dawn of morn,
and early it spills upon the ground.
I do not forgive death for loving you,
or forgive life for its distraction,
or forgive the ground,
or forgive oblivion.
With bare hands I raise a storm,
of stones, bolts and strident axes,
thirsting and hungering for catastrophe.
With bare teeth I want to dig the ground,
and move the dirt part by part,
in dry and furious bites.
I want to mine the earth until I find you,
to kiss your noble skull,
unbind your body and return you,
to my garden and my fig tree.
Your soul that was,
so effortlessly gentle,
will flutter lie a bird,
among the flowered trellises,
and will return at the murmur
of the iron gates,
where lovers meet.
You will lighten the shadow of my brow,
and your blood will flow through my garden.
Competing for the bees and for your girl,
your velvet heart will summon forth,
a crop of snowy almond blossoms.
But my jealous voice will call you
away from the almond trees,
to the winged souls of the roses.
For we have much to talk about,
my soul mate,
my companion.
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