Miguel Hernandez is naas Federico Garcia Lorca seker een van die bekendste Spaanse digters uit die Franco-tydvak. In 1942 het hy op 32-jarige ouderdom in aanhouding gesterf nadat sy doodstraf weens linkse aktiwiteite na 30-jaar tronkstraf verander is. Nou het sy familie ‘n aansoek by die Spaanse Hooggeregshof ingedien om dié aanklag en vonnis ter syde gestel te kry. In Maart vanjaar het die Spaanse regering glo ‘n “declaration of reparation” uitgereik, maar volgens The Independent se verslaggewer is die familie nié tevrede nie. “We want something more, that they void the death sentence, so we can take away that burden,” het Hernandez se skoondogter, Lucía Izquierdo, gesê. “That’s why we are asking that justice be served, that they hand down a ruling of innocent.”
Ter ondersteuning van die aansoek gaan die familie se prokureur ook ‘n brief by die hof indien. Hierdie brief is geskryf deur ene Juan Bellod, een van Franco se fascistiese amptenare, ten tye van Hernandez se vonnisverandering, maar helaas, Hernandez is oorlede aan tuberkulose voor die brief by die owerhede ingedien kon word. “I have known Miguel Hernandez since he was a boy,” het Bellod geskryf. “He is a person with an impeccable past, generous sentiments and deep religious and humanist training, but whose excessive sensitivity and poetic temperament have led him to act in accordance with the passion of the moment rather than calm, firm will. I fully guarantee his behaviour and his patriotic and religious fervour. I do not believe that he is, at heart, an enemy of our Glorious Movement.”
Nou ja, toe. Sy “sensitivity and poetic temperament” het darem daartoe gelei dat hy die beroemde gedig “Lullaby of the onion” nagelaat het. Vir jou leesplesier volg dit onder aan vanoggend se Nuuswekker.
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Vanoggend is daar twee besonderse blog waaraan jy jou kan verlekker: Jelleke Wierenga vertel van ‘n Australiese digter genaamd Gwen Harwood, terwyl Desmond Painter weer besin oor Walt Whitman en die utopiese verbeelding. En dan maak Bibi Slippers na ‘n lang afwesigheid ook haar terugkeer met ‘n kostelike blog oor olifante as die rede waarom sy tans nie aan die skryf kan kom nie …
Lekker lees en geniet die dag.
Mooi bly.
LE
Lullaby of the onion
The onion is frost
shut in and poor.
Frost of your days
and of my nights.
Hunger and onion,
black ice and frost
large and round.
My little boy
was in hunger’s cradle.
He was nursed
on onion blood.
But your blood
is frosted with sugar,
onion and hunger.
A dark woman
dissolved in moonlight
pours herself thread by thread
into the cradle.
Laugh, son,
you can swallow the moon
when you want to.
Lark of my house,
keep laughing.
The laughter in your eyes
is the light of the world.
Laugh so much
that my soul, hearing you,
will beat in space.
Your laughter frees me,
gives me wings.
It sweeps away my loneliness,
knocks down my cell.
Mouth that flies,
heart that turns
to lightning on your lips.
Your laughter is
the sharpest sword,
conqueror of flowers
and larks.
Rival of the sun.
Future of my bones
and of my love.
The flesh fluttering,
the sudden eyelid,
and the baby is rosier
than ever.
How many linnets
take off, wings fluttering,
from your body!
I woke up from childhood:
don’t you wake up.
I have to frown:
always laugh.
Keep to your cradle,
defending laughter
feather by feather.
Yours is a flight so high,
so wide
that your body is a sky
newly born.
If only I could climb
to the origin
of your flight!
Eight months old you laugh
with five orange blossoms.
With five little
ferocities.
With five teeth
like five young
jasmine blossoms.
They will be the frontier
of tomorrow’s kisses
when you feel your teeth
as weapons,
when you feel a flame
running toward your gums
driving toward the centre.
Fly away, son, on the double
moon of the breast:
it is saddened by onion,
you are satisfied.
Don’t let go.
Don’t find out what’s happening,
or what goes on.
© Miguel Hernández