Photography: Claudio Rodríguez. Cervantes Virtual.
Claudio Rodriguez, poet from Zamora, died in Madrid On a day like today in 1999, when he was working on his last book. This is one selection of some of their poems to remember or discover it.
Claudio Rodriguez
Degree in Romantic Philology, was a reader of Spanish at the Universities of Nottingham and Cambridge, which allowed him to meet the English romantics already Dylan Thomas, a fundamental influence on his training as a poet. Won several Awards in his career as the Adonai, the National Literature, the National Poetry or Prince Asturias of Letters. He was also a member of the Royal Spanish Academy of the Language.
poems
Gift of drunkenness
Clarity always comes from heaven;
it is a gift: it is not found among things
but far above, and occupies them
making of it their own life and work.
So the day dawns; so the night
closes the great chamber of its shadows.
And this is a gift. Who does less created
ever to beings? What high vault
does he contain them in his love? If it already arrives
and it is still early, it is already around
in the way of your flights
and looms, and moves away and, still remote,
nothing is as clear as your impulses!
Oh clarity thirsty of a way
of a subject to dazzle her
burning herself while doing her work.
Like me, like everything you expect.
If you have taken all the light,
How can I expect anything from dawn?
And yet - this is a gift - my mouth
wait, and my soul waits, and you wait for me,
drunken chase, lonely clarity
mortal as the embrace of sickles,
but I hug until the end that never lets up.
This illumination of matter ...
This illumination of matter,
with his custom and with his harmony,
with the ripening sun,
with the calm touch of my pulse,
when the air goes deep
in the anxiety of the touch of my hands
that play without suspicion,
with the joy of knowledge,
this wall without cracks,
and the evil door, oozing,
never closed,
when youth leaves, and with it the light,
save my debt.
New day
After so many days without a path and without a home
and without pain even and the bells alone
and the dark wind like that of memory
today arrives.
When yesterday the breath was a mystery
and the dry look, without resin,
I was looking for a definitive glow
comes so delicate and so simple,
so serene of new yeast
this morning…
It's the surprise of clarity
the innocence of contemplation,
the secret that opens with molding and amazement
the first snow and the first rain
washing the hazelnut and the olive tree
already very close to the sea.
Invisible stillness. Breeze blowing
the melody that I no longer expected.
It is the illumination of joy
with the silence that does not have time.
Serious pleasure that of loneliness.
And don't look at the sea because it knows everything
when the time comes
where thought never reaches
but yes the sea of the soul,
but yes this moment of the air between my hands,
of this peace that awaits me
when the time comes
-two hours before midnight-
of the third swell, which is mine.
A wind
Let the wind go through my body
and light it up. South wind, saline,
very sunny and very freshly washed
of intimacy and redemption, and of
impatience. Come in, come into my fire
open that way for me
never known: that of clarity.
It sounds thirsty for space,
June wind, so intense and free
that the breath, that now is desire
save me. Come
my knowledge, through
so much matter dazzled by your sling
Grace.
How deep you assault me and teach me
to live, to forget,
you, with your clear music.
And how you raise my life
very quietly
very early and lovingly
with that bright and true door
that opens me serena
because with you I never care
that something cloud my soul.