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, March 24, 2011

Memorandum for Andrés (Memorando para Andrés)

Flying back home today.  I’ve been thinking a lot about Dad in the past few days.  All the beautiful things I saw and enjoyed reminded me of him and how much he used to love the same things.  Here is a poem my Dad wrote when I was two.  From his book Urgent poetry (Poesía de urgencia).

Memorandum for Andrés (Memorando para Andrés)
When you are twenty six years of age [son]
you will say to your mother: it is time
according to my father’s advice
that is three of us who dream…
You by your old sewing machine in which
you thread old memories
and the one who joins their love with mine
so we soon recover from
the vast empty space left by my old man.

1978.
at 7:00 PM

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