Juan Ramón Jiménez. Beyond Platero and me. 5 poems

Juan Ramon Jimenez was born on December 23th 1881, already almost the 24, in Moguer (Huelva), and is one of the great Spanish poets of all time. His best known work is Platero and me, whose success already overshadowed everything else he wrote. Today I remember his figure with 5 poems beyond that little donkey.

Juan Ramon Jimenez

He started writing in adolescence and later he abandoned his law studies to devote himself entirely to poetry. He met and rubbed shoulders with the most influential writers of his time, such as Rubén Darío, Valle-Inclán, Unamuno, the Machado brothers, José Ortega y Gasset or Pío Baroja and Azorín, among others.

Passed his youth between Moguer, Seville, France and Madrid, which allowed him a solid training. He began to publish influenced mainly by Bécquer and Espronceda. His first books were: Nymphaeas, Violet souls, Rhymes, Sad arias, Far gardens y Pastoral.

In Moguer he wrote Platero and me, what was a immediate success and it was quickly translated into 30 languages. And already in october 1956 they gave him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

5 poems

I will not come back

I will not come back
I will not come back. And the night
warm, serene and quiet,
the world will sleep, to the rays
of its lonely moon.
My body won't be there
and through the open window
a cool breeze will come in,
asking for my soul.
I don't know if there will be anyone waiting for me
of my long double absence,
or who kisses my memory,
between caresses and tears.
But there will be stars and flowers
and sighs and hopes,
and love in the avenues,
in the shade of the branches.
And that piano will sound
as in this placid night,
and there will be no one to listen
thoughtful, at my window.

***

Other atmosphere

And on the rooftops
black banners
they cut their flights
Against the royal sky
yellow and green
of the imposing sun.

I was screaming crazy
dreams with eyes
(black flags
on the rooftops).
Naked women
they raised the moon.

Between the rich sunset
and the magic east,
sharp weather vane,
turned my soul.
And on the rooftops
black banners.

***

Care

Love, what does it smell like? It seems, when you love,
that the whole world has a rumor of spring.
The dry leaves turn and the branches with snow,
and he's still hot and young, smelling of the eternal rose.

Everywhere he opens invisible garlands,
all his backgrounds are lyrical -laughter or sorrow-,
the woman to his kiss takes on a magical meaning
that, as on the trails, is constantly being renewed ...

Music from ideal concerts comes to the soul,
words of a light breeze among groves;
sigh and cry, and sigh and cry
they leave like a romantic freshness of honeysuckle ...

***

Hands

Oh your hands loaded with roses! They are more pure
your hands than roses. And between the white sheets
the same as pieces of stars appear,
than wings of dawning butterflies, than candid silks.

Did they fall off the moon? Did they play
in a celestial spring? Are they from the soul?
… They have vague splendor of otherworldly lilies;
they dazzle what they dream, they refresh what they sing.

My forehead is serene, like an afternoon sky,
when you, like your hands, walk among its clouds;
if I kiss them, the ember purple of my mouth
it pales from its water-stone whiteness.

Your hands between dreams! They go through, pigeons
of white fire, for my bad nightmares,
and, at dawn, they open me, as they are light from you,
the soft clarity of silver orient.

***

Dream

High and tender image of consolation,
dawn of my seas of sadness,
lis of peace with scents of purity,
Divine prize of my long duel!

Like the stem of the flower of heaven,
your highness was lost in its beauty ...
When you turned your head towards me,
I thought I was being lifted off this ground.

Now, in the chaste dawn of your arms,
sheltered to your transparent chest,
How clear to me my prisons make them!

How my heart shattered
thanks the pain, the burning kiss
that you, smiling, compose it!