Psalm 80 (Salmo 80)

To my dear grandmother Belén, a wonderful woman whose heart was so big that she married her deceased sister’s widower in order to look after her two little kids, my uncle Demetrio and my auntie Elvira. Then, from her marriage with my grandfather Don José she had my father, my aunties Herminia and Consuelo and my twin uncles Julio and Jorge.

From my Dad’s book The celebrated afternoon (La tarde festejada).

Psalm 80 (Salmo 80)

I believe that the turbulence of the times

that we suffer

(you in the height of the 80 stairs

and I on the line that begins to blur

with the first few lights of twilight)

contrasts with the dawn of the century

that you knew from its beginnings.

Your youth reached the summit of love

in the midst of the classic prohibitions of the grandparents

and your lips learnt to pronounce

one name that you loved forever.

Next to the robust flow of your most noble heart

the tree of goodness grew and was filled with fruit.

Your name was continued in the lineage

and Yahweh blessed you

nourishing the table of the family gatherings

with the freshness of bread and wine.

Under your sight the fountains have changed their path,

fountains that used to moisten

the suntanned skin of the city,

the ancestral trees were substituted,

just as the men who used to adorn their prestige and

their historic silence.

Your foot does not step on the stones

that used to cover the wide streets, sunny and beautiful.

The afternoon breeze passes by without destination

missing the fraternal roundabouts.

The river merely talks with a sad tone

and there are no kites in the August winds.

In the dim light of memory

you prove that your time of today is another time

and that your veteran heart has felt

the terrifying roar that crashes the Motherland.

I know that you would have preferred to not have seen the eclipse

of the protecting stars, nor the blood staining the rivers

and the streets, or piercing shadows in the middle of the day.

You, who believed in the immutability of the landscape

of tenderness and almond tree that your eyes enjoyed!