My friend Elizabeth was recently sharing some of the tidbits of history that she has uncovered in her extensive research. She was talking about the lives of some of the women buried at Oak Hill Cemetery where I am on the Board of Trustees. She shared with me their writings and their involvement in Discussion Groups.
It is amazing how in touch these women from Woonsocket were with the cultural developments of their times and aware of other cultures as well. She told me of a fountain in Woonsocket that they named an "Andalusian Fountain". I wanted to think more about what those fountains were and to also wonder why they were in the minds of these women .
One of Andalucía's most intriguing and mysterious attractions is the notion of duende, the elusive spirit that douses much of Spanish art, especially flamenco. Duende loosely translates as a moment of heightened emotion that takes you out of yourself, experienced during an artistic performance, and it can be soulfully evoked in Andalucía if you mingle in the right places. Seek it out in a Lorca play at a municipal theatre, an organ recital in a Gothic church, the hit-or-miss spontaneity of a flamenco peña (club) or Málaga's remarkable art renaissance.
Or find yourself in a courtyard with the soothing sounds of a fountain.
Spanish poet Antonio Machado used fountains repeatedly as symbols and voices of feminine consciousness in his poems that evoked Andalusian fountains.
It was a clear afternoon, sad and somnolent
afternoon of summer. The ivy reached
the wall of the park, black and dusty.
You could hear the fountain
.
My key squeaked in the old gate;
with a sharp sound the rusty iron door
opened and, upon closing, gravely
struck the silence of the dead afternoon
.
In the deserted park, the sonorous
bubbling copla of the singing water
led me to the fountain. The fountain poured
its monotony over the white marble
.
The fountain sang: Does this song remind you,
brother, of a distant dream?
It was a slow summer’s slow afternoon.
I answered the fountain:
I don’t remember, sister,
but I do know this song of yours is distant.
It was this same afternoon: as today
my crystal poured its monotony upon the marble.
Remember, brother? ... The dangling myrtle,
that you see, darkened the clear songs
that you hear. Blonde as a flame,
the ripe fruit hung from the branch,
the same as now. Remember, brother?...
It was this same slow summer afternoon.
–My sister the fountain, I don’t know
what your bright copla of distant dreams is saying.
I know that your clear crystal of joy
already learned from the tree’s vermilion fruit;
I know its distant this bitterness of mine
that dreams in the afternoon of an old summer
.
I know that your pretty singing mirrors
copied old deliriums of love:
but recount, o fountain of entrancing words,
recount my joyful and forgotten legend
.
–I don’t know any legends of ancient joy,
but old melancholic stories.
It was a clear afternoon of the slow summer...
You would come alone with your sadness, brother;
your lips kissed my serene lymph,
and in the clear afternoon they spoke of your sadness.
They spoke of your sadness, your burning lips;
the thirst that they have now, they had then
.
–Goodbye forever, sonorous fountain,
always singing in the sleeping park.
Goodbye forever; your monotony,
fountain, is more bitter than my sadness.
My key squeaked in the old gate;
with a sharp sound the rusty iron door
opened and, upon closing, gravely
struck the silence of the dead afternoon.
“Always Fugitive, Always Near”
always fugitive, always near
always concealed, always disdainful
always leaving, always untouched
always in black, always dreaming
always the bitter flower
always the night, always concealed
always fugitive, always caged
always your face
always the bitter flower
of your lips, always your bed
always near, always fleeing
always waiting, always waiting
always calling to you
always the night deepens
always the night
always fugitive, always near
always leaving, always untouched
always in black, always dreaming
always the bitter flower
always the night, always concealed
always fugitive, always caged
always your face
always the bitter flower
of your lips, always your bed
always near, always fleeing
always waiting, always waiting
always calling to you
always the night deepens
always the night
always fugitive, always near
Antonio Machado (1875–1939) was an influential Spanish poet, best known for depicting the landscapes and common people of Spain and for his exploration of existential and moral topics. A vocal supporter of the Spanish Republic, Machado was forced to flee Spain during the siege of Madrid. He died in exile and is buried in Collioure, France.
SEE HOW ONE POET INSPIRES ANOTHER--HERE IS WALCOTT REFLECTING ON THE THOUGHTS THAT COME WHEN HE READS MACHADO.
"... The blue hills seem sadder as the afternoon falls ..."
DW
DW
"Reading Antonio Machado"
The barren frangipani branches uncurl their sweet threat
out of the blue More echoes than blossoms, they stun the senses
like the nocturnal magnolia, white as the pages I read,
with the prose printed on the left bank of the page
and, on the right, the shale-like speckle of stanzas
and the seam, like a stream stitching its own language.
The Spanish genius bristling like thistles. What provoked this?
The pods of a dry season, heat rippling in cadenzas,
black ruffles and the arc of a white throat?
All echoes, all associations and inferences,
the tone of Antonio Machado, even in translation,
The verb in the earth, the nouns in the stones, the walls,
all inference, all echo, all association,
the blue distance of Spain from bougainvillea verandahs
when white flowers sprout from the branches of a bull's horns,
the white frangipani flowers like the white souls of nuns.
Ponies that move under pine trees in the autumn mountains,
onions, and rope, the silvery bulbs of garlic, the creak
of saddles and fast water quarreling over clear stones,
from our scorched roads in August rise these heat-cracked stanzas,
all inferences, all echoes, associations.
out of the blue More echoes than blossoms, they stun the senses
like the nocturnal magnolia, white as the pages I read,
with the prose printed on the left bank of the page
and, on the right, the shale-like speckle of stanzas
and the seam, like a stream stitching its own language.
The Spanish genius bristling like thistles. What provoked this?
The pods of a dry season, heat rippling in cadenzas,
black ruffles and the arc of a white throat?
All echoes, all associations and inferences,
the tone of Antonio Machado, even in translation,
The verb in the earth, the nouns in the stones, the walls,
all inference, all echo, all association,
the blue distance of Spain from bougainvillea verandahs
when white flowers sprout from the branches of a bull's horns,
the white frangipani flowers like the white souls of nuns.
Ponies that move under pine trees in the autumn mountains,
onions, and rope, the silvery bulbs of garlic, the creak
of saddles and fast water quarreling over clear stones,
from our scorched roads in August rise these heat-cracked stanzas,
all inferences, all echoes, associations.
Derek Walcott
From. "The Bounty" - "Spain" - 1995
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