a hobo at heart i

8/14/2019 a hobo at heart I

1/25

CARLOS RAFAEL DOMNGUEZ

a

h o b o

at

h e a r t

VIGNETTES

I

March - 2009

1


2/25

Since the linyera de alma got an identity in the

Gutenberg universe in 2004, as a consequence, started

sharing his inner world in a conscious and voluntary way

with anybody who accepts his virtual company. At that

moment his reflections ceased to be monologues and

became open dialogues.

Sometimes they are dialogues with words. Other times,

they are only meaningful silences. Many others, simple

heartly greetings materialized by a curious visit to the blog.

He wrote in Spanish. Now he dare offer an anthology in

English of some of the vignettes in the blog.

2


3/25

being eighty in a classroom

To my dear students, past and present.

eightys a lot...eightys something...

eightys nothing...

years lived in a classroom...years spent in a classroom...

years enriched in a classroom...

grey days...red-hot days...golden days...

painful hours... pleasant hours...orgastic hours...

never teaching...seldom idling...

always learning...

an old man at the start...a mature boy midway...

a joyful child in the end...

sharing mind...sharing mind and soul...

sharing mind and soul and heart...

forgotten rationality...lost passions...

abiding innocence...

3


4/25

the diary of the hobo at heart

After a couple of months of publishing a daily report in Spanish in this blog of un linyera dealma , dealing with very slight things found in the coffer of his memories, this hobo at heartmade up his mind to start replicating some of them in English from time to time to reach, just incase, a further readership.He wrote this:

TO BEGIN WITH

In June I celebrated my eightieth birthday. It is not too little, and it is not too much. Thedecision of how long that space of time we call our life must be, (a space which, after all, is notso ours as it may seem, since it is not in our own hands.) Whose decision is its length? Should Iknow it, I would try to make a deal with that fellow and reach an agreement.

Being so ignorant in this respect (as in many others) I made up my mind to let me flow in lifeas one of those old hobos I had known walking along the rails just in front of my house. Theywere often travelling on a freight train without having the faintest idea about the destination.

A few years ago, having got disabled for the loss of my legs, in my leisure time, I cast an eye backwards on my previous footprints and scribbled a little book in Spanish called PALABRASMARCADAS. Diario de un linyera de alma., which would sound like Marked Words. A diaryof a Hobo at Heart. Numerous friends and old acquaintances as well as many occasionalcurious readers have got in touch with these pages and not a few gave me back their sympathy.

Recently I made up my mind once more, perhaps senselessly, to employ this new kind of paper offered to us by postmodern times with really unforeseen possibilities. I know I am takinga greater risk by starting a similar enterprise in English. A different way of going sowhere else?

No matter how it must be, here I send to the space the waves of this hobo at heart.

4


5/25

moments of a mental vacuum

In one of those moments the hobo at heart scribbled a page for MIS PALABRAS and he wantsto share it now with his friends

WHERE? WHEN?.

Today...Yesterday...Always... Never...Before...

Afterwards...Tomorrow...

Never... Next week...

Never...Always...

Next month... Never...

Next year... Never...

Any time...

In my bedrom.In the air...

On the grass...On the sand...In the water...

Under a tree..At the computer...On a train...

Underground...

Alone?With anybody?

Am I somebody?Was I somebody?Am I something?Was I something?

Shall I be something?

The society...

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6/25

Wats that?Anything different from the whole world?

From the universe?

Floating...Floating...Floating...Gently...Softly...

Just with a few dear ones...Very dear ones...

Who are...Who were...

Who will be...For ever...

Only one thing...With me..

With the world...With my world...

6


7/25

a romantic night

You cannot be a true hobo at heart if you dont keep a bit of romanticism inside. Looking at a postcard of one of the old houses where he had spent a couple of years in his childhood in aquiet neighborhood in Buenos Aires he was pervaded by one of his most vivid recollections.Here it is how he wrote about his experience some time ago.

MOONSCAPE

A night of full moon. Almost as clear as day. Bathed in a brilliant moonlight. One of thosenights of the Buenos Aires I remember. But not one of those sung in the tango, nights full of laughter and kisses and cotinuous partying. A night of that Buenos Aires, serene and placid. Ina rather modest neighborhood,. silver-plated by the moon.

In the postcard, vividly enough, you can see a little flowerbed sorrounded by a tiled floor andthe end of a covered corridor just in front of it. An old wooden bench (like one of the park

benches of those days) was there against the wall. A spot of intensely white light was falling fullon it, coming from the sky, from the part of the river. The brilliant rounded spot was not exactlyon the green bars of the seat of the bench, but on the face, lost in thought, of a ten years old boy.

With a certain effort I recognized myself as the boy lying there on the bench., the eyes fixedon the full moon that was paying me a visit. What for? Who knows? She was like a girlfriendcoming to give me a bright kiss on my forehead inviting me to a secret while of intimacy. Bothof us were dreaming, the moon and me. In the most absolute solitude. Only dreams. Far fromlogical or mercantile reflections. No future projects. No past distresses. Only dreams. Whatabout? About nothing at all. This is the most entrancing dream As it was before opening our eyes for the first time or closing them when we will breathe our last. A blank dream. No colors.

No contrasts. No waking up.Full moon! Only once in my life, long afterwards, we met again in a similar way, alone, the

moon and me. She has ben already trampled by the mean feet of ambitious human beings. Butshe remains for me, now and for ever, that moon of an immaculate and virgin light. My old eyesare tired if seeing, and seeing, and seeing. They always feel themselves purified by the caresses

of her light.

7


8/25

the hobo discovers latin

As ninety percent of the things that happened to him through his now long eighty years of life,his encounter with classic languages was completely fortuitous. It was neither the result of astrong calling raised in a familiar context nor an effect of his first teachers' impulses. Hisdiscovery was purely casual. Unpredictable. However, it was a true turning point. IIt became asif it were the leitmotiv in the whole development of the melodies of his wanderings

The encounter was told by himself this way, in one of his memory books:

****************

Again trees, plants, flowers, fresh and pure air, freedom, nature, the train heading towards theunknown, always new worlds though they seem to be always the same...Trees, parks, gardens... have known all by themselves how to make the hobo's happiness.However, sometimes they have not been the cause by themselves but through some secret theyhave kept so well and could transmit to the little hobo.Summer of 1939. A new house. From old Oran to old Ensenada. Neither of those street names

exist yet. Miserable memory-killing Buenos Aires mayors!Walking at random along Rivadavia towards downtown... Getting to the borders of Flores, Ifound the sign San Pedrito. Below it, another sign, an arrow pointing towards the right. It saidTo Avellaneda Park. Another day I tried to make an investigation together with my aunt Pilo,a great walker. We arrived at Rivadavia and San Pedrito and started following the arrow.Towards Directorio. There, to the right. Many blocks. We crossed Ensenada again. What auseless walk! The direct road would have been a lot shorter. No problem. The discovery wasworthwhile. But this is Olivera Park! my aunt told me. And again the changing names mania!We started walking and enjoying. We got to a fenced place. A space with games: slides, swings,giants strides, sandboxes... None of them took my attention. Only, a legend on the pavementunder the entry arch. MOTUS EST VITA .- What does it mean?

- Its not Spanish.- What is it?- I dont understand much, but I think its Latin.- Latin?- Yes, an ancient language. Mass is celebrated in Latin.- Do you understand what is said there?- Im not sure, but it is related to games. I guess it means something like moving is life,motion is life... - MOTUS EST VITA, MOTUS EST VITA, MOTUS EST VITA.....

I fell in love with those words... And that mysterious language? Ancient? Farfetched?Two years went by. Everything had been immersed in a world of dreams. But dreams have their own life. They walk and walk. Or else they are carried away in the hobos train.

*************************

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9/25

Not against his will but without his will, the little hobo, taken by deceitful dreams (that trulyexist) was dragged to a school for prospective priests, a group of boys filled with emptyillusions... First disappointments... No, those were not the little hobo's dreams, but... He foundsomething that pleased him a lot. Since the first days they put him in touch with Latin. What afantastic world! He treasured books and books... In a very short time he got ahead of his coursesand professors. He navigated alone, truly alone. Through a biblical poetry world, a world of Julius Caesar, of Roman legions, of forums, of Senate discussions, of adventures, of legends, of love, of philosophies, of history And the Greek world came... A whole pleasing and deliciousinner world... Little did he care about the coarseness and rainstorms of the outside world. Thatworld was very rich, very intense for the hobo. But at the same time it was a trap, that stoppedhim at the same station. When living so intensely in his own inside, what was outside sort of slid unnoticed, being monotonous, pedestrian, hypocritical, savage... What a world that oneinside of him! The classical world! In a little hobo's head! A golden cage for years... It taughthim how to think, to deliberate, to see a fantastic world's things, but hid him everyday realities.Until the day the cage's gold threads broke down almost without knowing how, and, with analways dreamt freedom finally conquered but never lived before, he realized that that classical

world was also useful to live in the real world. What a mystery classical languages are!

9


10/25

a night not so romantic

The hobo at heart had written in his memoirs:

A MOONLESS NIGHT

Again the moon and the little hobo as in a previous postcard, that of a romantic night. Incomplete solitude.

A moonless night. The same neighborhood. The same house. The same little garden. The samecorridor. The same bench. But this time, a dimly lit scenario. A hidden moon.Large blak clouds filled the sky. Only a dim thread of light coming from the streetlight swingingin the air on the corner of Ensenada and Rafaela. The image of a little boy sitting on the bench ishardly visible in the semidarkness. Scanning over and over I managed to find out that the little

boy sitting on the bench was the same that was in the other postcard, immersed in a sweetdialogue with the full moon. It was me. Myself! Perhaps one year later. Just on the point of finishing my primary school.But was I exactly the same? Yes and no. I believe nobody is the same being he was a second

before. An infinite number of details which build up our personality are continually in search of a new balance. At least, that is my experience. And there were periods in my life when thosechanges seemed to be true revolutions.

There I was sitting, not lying as in the previous year. Almost in darkness. But thoughts keptvery active even in darkness. Communication with the outer world seemed to have stopped. Mysenses were sort of frozen. Only my mind was on active service transmitting a light shivering toeach cell of the body.

Looking at the postcard through the misty lenses of dozens of years, I think I am in a positionto risk a tentative interpretation of the tremors of that child in that moonless night. Now Iscrutinize them not only through a time-dirty lens but also through my personal experiences,some of them lived all by myself and some others perceived from people around me. They allgave me lots of views very different from the ones.I had foreseen.

Behind those tremors, in a distant past, I can identify, however, a very long series of cloudythreatening ghosts, all of them in relation with the future and that could be put together under avery general label : fears. Evidently for each of those tremors in my fragile body there was, inmy childish little head, which dit not want to become adult, a corresponding uninterruptedsequence of discharges very similar to those of an electric current. It was a muddledundecipherable heap of very black storm clouds seen in a more or less upcoming horizon. Acomplete lack of definition. An unknown future. The inexorable rest of that mystery called life.Studies? Work? The family? The military service? Just surviving?

To flee? Desperately. To flee? Where? Towards the unknown. Far. Very far. To be amissionary? To work in a leper colony in the Philippine Islands? Fleeing, fleeing, fleeing... TheForeign Legion in Africa? Fleeing, fleeing, fleeing... As in panic.But unexpectedly I happened to be swallowed by a black hole, captivated by the sweetness of fallacious dreams... All this, however, is not recorded in the picture. Only tremors can be seen

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11/25

there.

from the hobos memoirs

LITTLE COINCIDENCES

The child is father of the man said once William Wordsworth. Many people I know andmany more I do not know rushed to their childhood in search of their present identity. I never tried this exploration intentionally, but, as time went by, in some strange ways, I becameexperimentally certain of the truth enclosed in those words.

Let us rewind the tape a bit. I have recently, under the heading of Diario de un linyera dealma, compared my own life to the continuous wandering of a drifter. In this rather long andsometimes blind continuous walking I came across an uncountable number of very littleincidents almost completely deleted from my memory in the course of time.

Curiously enough, writing in retrospection, many of these trivial events reentered my alreadyold mind almost subreptitiously. Let us, by way of example, take some of them, whichmysteriously returned in a sort of chain.

One series of these unexpected experiences did not start on the wonderful fells of Wordworths lake district but on the no less wonderful hills of Tandil. As for the great majority of my

fellow citizens Che Guevara entered my brain in 1959. I was in Tandil, on holidays, having breakfast in the thick and fresh shadow of some huge pines. I was listening to the radio.Suddenly a mystic caribbean breeze from another hill, called Sierra Maestra, caressed my youngimagination, a then young imagination, full of dreams of heroic even if utopic social ideals andarcane adventures. I did not figure out neither awful bloodshed nor scattered corpses in the least.I only felt transported to a world of glorious and romantic deeds in the pleasant atmosphere of afairy tale.

******************************

It was in 1999. In the evening. Bus terminal in Tandil. November. I had just finishedmy teaching task that Friday and was waiting for my bus to Mar del Plata. Thedeparture was due a bit late. My eyes were attracted by a magazine in a newsstand. Inits cover there was the unmistakable face of the Che in full colour. It was an impressionsimilar to that experienced fourty years before also in Tandil. I bought it and got on the

bus. I took a seat and fumbled for the reading light. Fortunately it was working that night. Icovered my ears not to be disturbed by the deafning sound from the movie they were projecting,and, surprise!, in the central pages I found : Alta Gracia, with a photo of the house where Chehad lived and a small map of the Carlos Pellegrini neighbourhood where it is placed. I looked atit several times. Again and again. I soon recognized, as in a mist, my neighbourhood once inmy childhood in Alta Gracia and my house near the then very famous Sierras Hotel. Many,many years ago.

*****************************

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12/25

Scanning a couple of books and my own memory I discovered that Che was four days older than me. Both had been born in June 1928 and since 1932 to 1936 both had been neighbours inAlta Gracia. I lived there, intermittenly, half of the time of the first eight years of my life

because of my fathers lung disease. Before 1932 we had occupied a chalet called Villa Nydiaand after that date we lived in some other place nearby. Precisely in that year. the Guevarafamily went to Alta Gracia because Ernesto suffered from asthma. They rented different houses

but since 1934 they lived in Villa Nydia, exactly where I had lived before. During four years,since 1932 to 1936 we shared the same neighbourhood very near Sierras Hotel to whose park we both often used to go.

****************************

In July 2001 the Museo Municipal del Che was opened in Villa Nydia. I was there duringthe week of the inauguration. It was a physical encounter with my early childhood. How todescribe my feelings on that occasion would be an impossible task .

********************************After that I believed nothing else would be discovered in the chain of that series of

coincidences. But there was no end. For the celebration of the Week of the Che 07, I sent to theMuseum a brief paper called So far and so near. One of its paragraphs ran like this:

Tet (as he was called then) had a good number of friends. He was very friendly and naughty.I was looked after very much at home and very rarely was alone outdoors. Practically the onlyfriend in those days whose name I remember was Dante, son of the caretakers of a luxuriousneighbouring mansion. With Dante I walked all the streets and places of Villa Carlos Pellegrini(a rather small and peaceful district close to the then aristocratic Sierras Hotel). From time totime we engaged with other children of the neighbourhood in some spontaneous football matchat a quiet crossroads. We were no more than a dozen. The Ches biographers say he often wasmixed in that kind of events. It seems almost impossible we have not met more than once.

To my great surprise, a week ago I found in a blog of isla negra, something written recently by one of Ches brothers, Roberto:

My parentsrelations were those of rich people and ours those of the poor ones, people wholived permanently in the area. Our friends were the children of the peasants and caseros, thatis to say, those who were the caretakers of other persons houses and proprieties. I remember theVidosa, Ariel and Dante, whom we named Tiqui.

Apparently, a common friend was another close link in this chain of little coincidences. Onemore. Is not this a strong and strange revival of childhood in the life of an old man, the revivalof that child who, in Wordswoths words, can really be called. his father?.

12


13/25

like an episode out of a novel

Someone who thinks what he thinks himself, at least, as regards some spontaneous focuses of reality. That is truly rewarding for the hobo at heart. At this time in his life, it is almostimpossible for him to find a really new point of view in reference to the limited world view ahuman being can achieve. However, he is indeed happy to meet another planet walker that hassome elementary agreements with him.

Unexpectedly, the other day, a familiar voice called him from Paris, and told him that acommon acquaintance, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clzio, would be awarded the Nobel Prize inLiterature. .- I know this is an irrelevant piece of news for you, she told him, but this event can be anexception. I think we are talking about a true hobo at heart. You'll love to read some of hisnovels. I give you a couple of samples related to his central attitude towards life and the world.

- OK," answered the hobo. Tell me something.- One of his works is devoted to Estrellita, a wandering star. I would say she is no less than ahobo woman.- Shes one of us!- Le Clzio is a voracious walker looking for different places and cultures.- Without a fixed commitment. Hes a true hobo.- Once he defined himself as a traveller, a world citizen, a nomad.- We have something in common.- When he was young, he left school for a year to explore new horizons elsewhere.- The other day I heard a famous rock singer suggesting youngsters who wish to succeed inlife, to leave school before their brains putrefy.- Thats too much.-I agree, in a way. But you have to defend yourself.- Another coincidence with you.- Which one?- His first novel was Le Procs-Verbal. You wrote `Palabras marcadas- The language role in our lives!"- May be the novel you will like most is `Dsert. Its about the story of a Saharan woman whotravels along Europe as a hobo at heart.- How many things that bring us together!- OK, lets end up. I hope I have left you a picture of a, if not twin, very similar soul to yours.- Thanks. Its good to know that sometimes even in Stockholm they appreciate a hobo.

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14/25

true hobos

Once upon a time, being a little child, the hobo at heart met true hobos for the first time and,strangely enough, he fell in love with their life style.

MY FIRST MEETING

It was in my native little town, El Triunfo, which was very young then and is celebrating itscentenary next year. It is adjacent to the railway line called Ferrocarril Oeste at that time andnear the old Alsina ditch.

SLEEPER

- Where are we going?

- Till were exhausted.- Till the signal, grandpa?- And further. If we pass the level crossing, well continue a little more.- To the end of the rails?- Uh... too far away... Buenos Aires is at the end...- You came from there, didnt you? Is it big?- Huge..- Why are these pieces of wood under the rails?

- So the rails are seized. They are called sleepers. So the train moves softly.- What a name!- They are motionless there, as if they were asleep.- Sleepers, you said. Ill never forget it. Where are they taken from?- From a hard-wood tree. Its name is quebracho.- Are you staying with us long enough? So we can come back to walk along the rails steppingon the sleepers.- Im staying for a few days... Next week Im going back to my home in Buenos Aires.It was 1933... March... Luckily for the little hobo under shool age.... He was as free as birds and

butterflies.Suddenly a strange noise was heard... The signal went down...- The train is coming! Lets stay aside and see it going past slowly to its halt at the station.

- Theres time yet. Its just leaving the other station. Its coming from Buenos Aires.- And where does it get?

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15/25

- Too far away. Crossing the dunes. Miles and miles. A lot of sleepers. A lot. A lot.We sat next to the rails and started waiting.- There comes the train! I can see the locomotive smoke.- Is it a goods train or a passenger train?- A freight train. Because its no time for the passenger train to pass.- There it is! Look! There are two hobos sitting on the roof. Are they staying in our town?- Who knows? They never know where to go. They travel and travel and travel When they wishto they step down and stay somewhere for a few days. Then they go on... or go back...- What a great life! Would you like to be a hobo? I certainly would.

blue idyll

The hobos wanderings are now almost exclusively urban. From the yearning countryside thatonce was the hobos environment, he preserves many postcards very well kept in the mostromantic corner of his soul,. Here goes one.

This is a postcard with special characteristics. Though belonging to my first childhood, itappears as a composition only possible due to the magic of a modern computer.

The background shows a huge field that covers the whole postcard, extended to the infinite,endless, there, there, there I was cutting the air and the dust, sitting on the International of the store, a big delivery truck without a cockpit. A carpet of blue flowers, really deep blue,swung in the breeze waving as gently as the most elegant ballet dancers on tiptoe . A captivatingsea of peace and harmony. Everything is blue. A scenery that invites the hobo to jump into theocean of life without fears or distresses

At a corner of the postcard, as if it were a little window, a small gray paper envelope with afour-letter label: F-L-A-X . The envelope is on a shelf over mi father's desk, together with manyothers that say wheat, corn, barley, rye and many more. But the F-L-A-X envelopeseems to stand out. I don't know, it's the most elegant, it's the centre, the king. It is as if my eyessaw it blue. Soy didnt appear in those years.

The third element from the composition has nothing to do with something visual. No doubt itwas added to the postcard some time later. Its a waltz of Homero Expsito from 1947. Imagesare from many years before. But, though I dont know exactly the reason, those musical beatswere attached and inseparablefrom it (at least to me). Oh Flax flower, what a strange destinycut short a road full of flax flowers... What a caressing music! I saw her bloom as flax in anArgentine field ripe in the sun Ah! Those flax fields! So blue! Are all these views from ayesterday world? No! Theres a gate through which memories return to the dear home...

And a fourth element is added, which is stuck to this mysterious postcard as a cataplasm.Exactly as a cataplasm. With the whole aroma of flax flour that my grandmother used to put onme every time she thought it necessary and beneficial for my health. This used to happenfrequently. That was a delicious aroma for me and imbued for ever that old postcard with a lovetouch, as if anything still lacked. It looked even as a blue scent.

What a richness of sensations! All together in one already blurred postcard. Blurry but stillcapable to revive very pleasant and everlasting memories. Past that is still present and will befuture until Blue idyll!

Without my will interference, I saw myself precociously far away, in the real life , from those blue fields Would have been my destiny any different if I had continued floating amongthem? Oh! That flax field! your memory always haunts me through the ever night of my

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16/25

loneliness

Acknowledgement:Mel is gently lending me a hand with the English version of my vignettes.

drinking mate alone

The hobo would like to be in a circle of friends drinking mate. In many ways they give himsupport to continue with his enterprise of pulling the leaves of his thoroughly ordinarymemories and impressions. During this extra time of his existence. A virtual meeting todrink mate is not the same. It is so nice to have mate with someone! But having the mate asa company when you are alone is also nice.

Drinking mate Without a scenery Without a company Just the kettle, the mate, theyerba the bombilla and me....

A sip, a memoryA sip, a wish

A sip, a trip to far landsA sip, a search in emptiness

A sip, a sudden decisionA sip, a friendly smile

A sip, grapeshot clattersA sip, a friendly dogs look

A sip, a bittersweet tearA sip, an invisible mate-party among friends

A sip, a breeze caressA sip, savage howls

A sip, a thankful hand

A sip, a farewellA sip, a brief visit from beloved ones...A sip, in privacy with the dearest woman

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17/25

A sip, a long kissA sip, a world of romantic songs... .

A sip, a moon filled with melancholic lightA sip, a sun of hopeful fire

A sip, a rough loud laugh of red wineA sip, a blank of absences

A sip, and another sip, and another one, and

(Mels hand was also helpful here)

sharing a lyre

The Skeleton

Chattering finch and water-flyAre not merrier than I;

Here among the flowers I lieLaughing everlastingly.

No; I may not tell the best;Surely, friends, I might have guessedDeath was but the good King's jest,

It was hid so carefully.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

El esqueleto

Pjaros en el aire y pececillos y en el agua,Decidme si ms que yo alguien alegre se halla;

En dulce paz aqu tengo entre las flores mi cama,Ro y ro sin medida,

Y si hay algo que me asombraEsta es, amigos, del caso la importancia toda:

Que la muerte solo era de mi buen Rey una bromaEstaba tan escondida!

El linyera de alma

The Human Tree

Many have Earth's lovers been,Tried in seas and wars, I ween;

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18/25

Yet the mightiest have I seen:Yea, the best saw I.

One that in a field aloneStood up stiller than a stone

Lest a moth should fly.

Birds had nested in his hair,On his shoon were mosses rare,Insect empires flourished there,

Worms in ancient wars;But his eyes burn like a glass,Hearing a great sea of grass

Roar towards the stars.

From them to the human treeRose a cry continually:

`Thou art still, our Father, we

Fain would have thee nod.Make the skies as blood below thee,Though thou slay us, we shall know thee.

Answer us, O God!

Show thine ancient fame and thunder,Split the stillness once asunder,

Lest we whisper, lest we wonder Art thou there at all?'

But I saw him there alone,Standing stiller than a stone

Lest a moth should fall.


EL ARBOL HUMANO

Probado fui en los mares y las guerras;Mucho supe de amantes en la tierra;

Pero aquello que he visto con ms fuerza,Lo mejor que hube visto,

Estaba all plantado como roca, No fuera a perturbar las mariposas.

Han puesto en l los pjaros su nido,Raros musgos han a sus pies dormido,

Mil imperios han all florecidoDe los gusanos en sus viejas guerras;Mas centellan sus ojos como fuego

Al oir las malezas que del sueloFuriosas rugen hacia las estrellas.

As hasta el rbol humanoSe alza un grito desde el llanoOh Padre, mueve tu mano,

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19/25

Djanos oir tu voz;Convierte en sangre los cielos;

Aplstanos, ay, emperoContstanos, oh Dios!

Muestra tu poder de trueno,Rompe esa quietud de acero;

Para que ya no dudemosQue all presente t ests.

El all sigue plantadoComo roca, solitario,

Nada quiere perturbar.

El linyera de alma

THE STRANGE MUSIC

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,

Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,Still, my hope is all before me : for I cannot play it yet.

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall,In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,

Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.

Not as mine, my soul's annointed, not as mine the rude and lightEasy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;

Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.

But I will not fear to match themno, by God, I will not fear,I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.


EXTRAA MSICA

Hay amores pasajeros, amores hay que se aplacan;Cual trovador incansable que lleva el arpa a su espalda,Yo, con mi arpa sobre el pecho, pulso y pulso sin cesar,Mas solo guardo esperanzas: sus notas no s arrancar.

Esconden una msica tus cuerdas, que jams alguien toc,Sellado un placer hay en tu alma, que jams alguien so:

Tan sutil como tu espritu, grcil como tu figura.Ms dura que la pena que te envuelve, ms suave que tu angustia.

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20/25

Golpeada mi pobre alma, y en varios regocijos aturdida,Orgullosa en sus luchas y su canto, no como t, muy sola est mi vida;

Muy misterioso algo encierra, mucho ms dulce y lejano,Secreto como tus venas, mgico, triste y extrao.

Pero en esta, de Dios arpa superna, habrn las cuerdas de sonar muy fuerte,En ella el Tiempo es aprendiz, la Vida es torpe, y es necia hasta la Muerte.

Lejos de m el temor de usar tus cuerdas por Dios, lejos de m,-Yo he de saber hacerlo y las estrellas, su marcha detendrn, s, para or.

El linyera de alma

The Sword of Surprise

Sunder me from my bones, O sword of GodTill they stand stark and strange as do the trees;

That I whose heart goes up with the soaring woodsMay marvel as much at these.

Sunder me from my blood that in the dark I hear that red ancestral river run

Like branching buried floods that find the seaBut never see the sun.

Give me miraculous eyes to see my eyesThose rolling mirrors made alive in me

Terrible crystals more incredibleThan all the things they see

Sunder me from my soul, that I may seeThe sins like streaming wounds, the life's brave beat

Till I shall save myself as I would saveA stranger in the street.


La espada de la sorpresa

Crtame de mis huesos, espada de mi Dios,Hasta quedar cual rbol, tieso, duro y extrao;

Mi corazn quiere elevarse cual sus ramas,Y llenarse de asombro all en lo alto.

De mi sangre seprame; en tinieblasEl rojo antiguo torrente oigo correr

Y esos cursos ocultos que al mar vanSin jams el sol ver.

Dame ojos milagrosos para ver mis pupilas,

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Los vivientes espejos que hay en m,Ms raros y terribles

Que cuanto en ellos reflejarse vi

Seprame de mi alma, quiero ver La sangre de mis culpas, los golpes del destino;

Por salvarme a m mismo, como haraCon un extrao al borde del camino.

El linyera de alma

a touch of nationalism

A CIDER SONG

The wine they drink in ParadiseThey make in Haute Lorraine;

God brought it burning from the sodTo be a sign and signal rod

That they that drink the blood of God

Shall never thirst again

The wine they praise in ParadiseThey make in Ponterey,

The purple wine of Paradise,But we have better at the price;It's wine they praise in Paradise,

It's cider that they pray.

The wine they want in ParadiseThey find in Plodder's End,The apple wine of Herford,Of Hafod Hill and Herford,

Where woods went down to Herford,And there I had a friend.

The soft feet of the blessed goIn the soft western vales,

The road of the silent saints accord,The road from heaven to Herford,Where the apple wood of Herford

Goes all the way to Wales.


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UN CANTO A LA SIDRA

Beben en el ParasoEl vino de Alta Lorena.

Dios lo arranca de esa tierraComo seal valedera:

Quien prueba sangre de DiosA la sed le dice adis.

Honran en el ParasoEl vino de Ponterrey.Es purpreo su color. Nosotros algo mejor

Tenemos por ese precio Nuestra sidra es superior.

Quieren en el ParasoLo que producen en Plodder,

De manzanas el buen vinoQue saben tomar en Herford,

En las colinas de Hafod,Donde yo tena un amigo.

Recorren con pies de sedaLos habitantes del cieloEl camino de los santos,

Por los valles hasta Herford

Cuyos dulces manzanaresSiguen el camino a Gales.

El linyera de alma

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forgetting

Tearing one of the hardest pages out of Ms palabras.It was yesterday, September 4th, seventy seven years ago, a nigro signanda lapillo day But theamber black colour was noticed by that unwary kid a long time later. In 1941 everything seemed

pink for him. He followed the trace of something divine and unreachable. Now the hobo at heart remembers it like this:

LETHE

Sacred river flowing through Hades....

With waters of oblivion

Who obliged me to drink from your waters?

So many dear things left at your riverbanks!

So many things that would have helped me to live on!

So many beautiful things that left space for awful things!

But it wasnt an endless oblivion.

Some things came back

Not all

Just some

Very nice ones

The entrance to all forgetfulness

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The hobo, in this diary, wants to tell the story of some other words that were stored in somespecial way in his mind, besides the marked ones. Beforehand, a previous step. Beforeachieving new words in his brain : Forget. Forget. Forget. Erase from memory. Clean your neurons with a good detergent and leave them empty. As if what existed, didnt exist at all. As if what has been, had not been at all. As if what was wished, be not wished now.

The passage through the River of Oblivion was, undoubtedly, looked at a distance; one of theessential landmarks in the hobos trip. Those mysterious waters didnt act in an immediate andconvincing way. It was something progressive, soft, imperceptible. But thus, step by step, thoseinvisible walls were being built, separating the hobo from the world he had lived in until then,during his few years within his family, till the point of making him live immerse in an artificialatmosphere, and see the real world only through those invisible but firm and, apparently,impassable walls. Through those walls reality seemed, I dare say, distorted by the mysteriousoptical quality of the material with which the walls were built. It was a subtly filtered up reality.

The portal that led me to the passage through the caressing waters of the river seemed soattractive. Very attractive. Maybe to some people, maybe for most of my then partners, it was a

step to a sought and achieved happiness. I think I should say that it was so for very few of us, because most of the ones I met there crossed that portal again in a sudden returning, even beforeerasing their minds with forgetfulness. It took longer to the hobo, with his weary gait, todiscover that his way was notthat. At that moment the entrance was brilliant. It shined. It wascalling him. He was overwhelmed by charming mermaid songs.

The little hobo was a bit unwary Very unwary. He was an innocent and dreamer boy. He lethimself be dazzled. Just as he put a foot on the threshold under that solemn entrance, hereceived a divine command: FORGET.

- Youre tired drink something refreshing- It's a nice welcome What can I drink?- I have anything you want.

- OK.- I offer you the reception glass.- It seems exquisite Bubbling- Drink it with pleasure...- That is what Im doing...- Youve entered the chosen ones land- I want to be near God- Youll be always with Him- Can you assure it?- With one condition. It depends on you.- On me?- Here you leave your entire world behind... Forget it! Forget it!- For ever?- You should never look back.- And if I do?- You'd have lost everything, and youll be damned to hell!- .......................- .......................Forget what? The command was revealed step by step

(Many thanks, Mel)

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a hobo at heart i

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