Why do this?

My father, José Luis Villamizar Melo, passed away in my home town of Cúcuta, Colombia, in August last year. The law and economics were Dad's profession, but literature, history and academia his passion. He wrote and published several books, articles and book chapters. The thing is that so many people have missed out on his work, particularly on his beautiful poetry, which he wrote in Spanish prior to the world wide web. So I thought, what a better way to keep Dad's legacy alive than to bring his writing beyond his world and share it with mine. That is why I am translating over 250 of my Dad's poems to English and publishing them here, one a day, Monday to Friday during 2011 (Dad, a family man, always believed that you shouldn't work on weekends).



Thursday, January 27, 2011

Now solitude (Ya la soledad)

Here is a little gem from my Dad’s book Urgent poetry (Poesía de urgencia).  Dedicated tonight to Roger Federer, a few minutes after he lost to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open 2011.

Now solitude (Ya la soledad)

In twenty years we wrote
that short story
which you could refer to
day by day and hour by hour
but life goes on
light and quiet
and our company
is left alone,

alone like in the beginning
which we do not remember anymore.

                1977
at 10:49 PM

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