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THE STRESS OF STORMS THE CLIFF OF VIZNAR |
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THE STRESS OF STORMS THE CLIFF OF VIZNAR |
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FEDERICO GARCIA-LORCA
(1898-1936)
Spanish poet born in Fuente Vaqueros, in 1898, he died in
Viznar, Granada, in
1936. In 1936, the Spanish people went to war against the
rebel military that wanted to abolish the Republic. The same day the battle
started, June 18th,
Garcia-Lorca left Madrid and headed for Granada, his homeland, after saying to
his friends, “I leave because here they are annoying me with politics of which I
don’t understand anything and don’t want to know anything… I leave for my town
to get away from factions and from savagery.”
Unfortunately, hours later, Granada fell into the hands of the rebels and Garcia-Lorca was horribly murdered on August 19th, 1936, at the age of thirty-eight, on the Viznar cliff.
Garcia-Lorca is an unquestionable jewel of contemporary poetry. He was one of the most representative figures of the Generation of ‘27.
Of his work we will mention: Impressions and Landscapes (1918), Book of Poems (1921), Poem of a Cante Jondo (1922), Songs (1927), Gypsy Ballads (1928), Poet in New York (1930), Six Galician Poems (1932), Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (1935). And of his very famous dramatic plays we can mention: Blood Wedding (1934), Yerma (1934), Mariana Pineda (1927), Dona Rosita (1935) and The House of Bernarda Alba (1936).
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THE CLIFF OF VIZNAR
To the poet, on his one hundredth birthday.
The cruel fascist riffles, marked by genocidal swastikas, have thundered again but this time in Fuente Vaqueros, an Andalusian province of the Spanish Granada, at the generous chest of a man that avoided them all his life. However, destiny had decreed that his body be lost forever on the cliff of Viznar on early morning of August 19th, of this year, 1936.
I heard the cruel news on the radio at six o’clock in the afternoon and an ocean away: here in my American exile. I remembered that just a month ago, while I was in Madrid, a shaken Federico Garcia-Lorca climbed the old stairway in the building of the literary magazine ‘Indice,’ managed by Don Juan Ramon Jimenez, a literary man who had assumed the patronage of that exquisite group of poets that posterity would evoke under the name of Generation of ’27.
We gathered there in a room on the third floor. The many pages of the manuscripts cluttered the long oval oak table around which we, the writers, were placed like knights of a new Holy Grail. Luis Cernuda, who always came early, consulted with Pedro Salinas and Vicente Aleixandre about the challenge of keeping a strict balance between tradition and literary vanguardism. Rafael Alberti, moving his chair loudly, expressed his admiration for the classics. Jose Bergamin talked with Maria Teresa Leon about the relevance that traditional verse had in the folklore transmitted through lyrics and romance. However, she insisted on free verse and on the importance of imagery and metaphors. This literary symbiosis was very useful for all the members of our group.
The door creaked on its hinges and we all gazed up at Federico Garcia-Lorca who was late.
“How are the preparations going for the House of Bernarda Alba?” asked Teresa very excited. Before answering, Federico placed his overcoat on the coat rack, and he moved towards the window to open it and free the room of the stinging tobacco smoke.
“The play is ready for performance… But it will not be stayed here, in Madrid… ” he said indifferently.
“Why?” interrupted his colleagues in a chorus.
“Today I’ll return to Granada… I leave because here they are annoying me with politics of which I don’t understand anything and don’t want to know anything,” he said. There was fear in his voice.
“Calm down, Federico,” I said. “This tornado of black pigeons will soon pass.”
I was trying to cheer him up.
“I am a friend to everyone,” insisted Federico, moving me out of his way. “The only thing I want, as you all know, is for everybody to have a job and something to eat… Why do these judgmental politicians insist in searching my writings for meanings I never imagined?”
“Sit down, Federico,” begged Rafael Alberti, pulling up a chair. Instead, Federico headed towards one of the walls where was posted one of his old poems, yellow with age. Ripping it off, he said to us, “Remember this one?” He shook it before our faces and started to recite in a way poetry had never been recited before:
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
After he finished the last verse of the Somnambulist Ballad he said in a persuasive tone:
“It sounds like it has an argument… right? Well, it doesn’t! There is no forsaken argument here; there is no wretched intention here, not even the forced political tone that my ‘intelligent’ inquisitors see in it. There is only form here, just form and nothing but form… I’ve argued about this since Plaza Baeza… First with my French professor, Antonio Machado… And last, in this same room with that committed Chilean, Pablo Neruda. I have pondered upon it with Salvador Dali in his house and with Luis Bunuel at the movies… I have defended my work in all the forums but… I am sick of it… I’m leaving! I’m leaving right now for Fuente Vaqueros, my hometown, so I can get away from this stupid struggle of factions and all this savagery!”
Silence filled the room and nobody was able to say anything. We knew the truth of those words. Federico then folded the poem and hid it in his shirt, stained by premonitions; he grabbed his overcoat and left in a haste for the train station.
Nevertheless, ill luck followed my friend’s destiny and mocked his useless flight because forty-eight hours later Granada had fallen into the hands of rebels.
The Rosales’ house hid Lorca. However, the shiny noses of the fascist weasels sniffed him out at five in the afternoon and by daybreak the poet’s soul was gone.
Oh! Listen, always untimely fatality! You have only gained a mausoleum without a body, because the immortal spirit of our poet still wanders through the house of Bernarda Alba, still sings Gypsy Ballads, poems and Cante Jondos. He visits the tragic Yerma on all the stages, and he forever wonders at New York… and today we do not mourn for Sanchez Mejias but for the cruel destiny Federico Garcia Lorca had to face when he had his Blood Wedding on the cliff of Viznar.
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| ANTERIOR | ÍNDICE | SIGUIENTE |
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***
Flap their wings, the tall roosters hail the dawn. Someone runs down the street like a crazy elf. Like a dark green moon he runs and runs; his shadow is left behind, caught by the beast of his own premonition.
Is it Federico Garcia-Lorca? Yes, it is!
A dream, an ungrateful omen, has struck during this Capricorn night and has left him with a strange taste of bile, mint and basil.
With that vision burnt in his eyes, he runs in black dread to the house of the gipsy Soledad Montoya, a fortune teller that the poet used to visit from time to time.
“Soledad!” cries Garcia-Lorca as he bangs on the door.
“Federico! What’s wrong with you? You don’t have a shirt on, and look at the time!” yells the gipsy, leaning over the high rail at her client, covered in sweat and smelling of beasts and shadows.
“Soledad Montoya, tonight I have seen Death itself! When he turned to look at me, the empty pits of its eyes lit up and to my horror, he lifted his hand and disappeared! Read my vision, Soledad Montoya.”
On the balcony, the gipsy raises her fist to the moon. Silver and bronze are her bracelets and they shake like a tambourine when she hears the poet’s bewildered voice.
She braids her hair, hurries down the stairs and lets Federico in. With a soaking green pine branch she sprays skylark water on his chest to calm him down and, wrapping him in a blanket, she makes him sit down in front of her. The woman takes Garcia-Lorca’s trembling hands across the small round table and gazes into the crystal ball. There she can see the image of a crazed steed in a frightened gallop towards the sea where he is swallowed by the ocean.
“Run, Federico! Get away from Madrid right now for nothing good awaits you here!” cries the gipsy woman.
“Yes, I will return to Fuente Vaqueros, my town, in my homeland Granada.”
Dropping the blanket, Garcia-Lorca runs again to fly from Madrid.
The gipsy unbraids her hair to go back to bed… Soon after she falls asleep she sees Death floating clean and alone over the hidden stream of daybreak.
The Andalusian woman summons all her courage and approaches Death with the only intention of distracting him and that way give Federico some more time. She asks, “Why, holy creature, have you come for the poet’s soul when there are so many fascists here that deserve the stroke of your scythe?”
“I have not come today, Soledad Montoya, to claim your client’s soul,”
answered Death.
“Then why has Federico seen your glowing amphibian eyes and your hand up in the air like an Albacete knife?” asks the fortune teller.
“Oh, that… Yes… Well, I was surprised, Soledad Montoya, to see the poet here. It is true I lifted my hand, but not to take him away! But to touch my temples and wonder why Federico Garcia-Lorca is in Madrid. Because by the time the roosters crow, calling for the next dawn, I will snatch his spirit away from the Viznar cliff in his homeland, Granada, and take it into the sea!”
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© Alberto Sibaja Álvarez. San José, Costa Rica
® The Stress of Storms
