I’ve been absent from my blog for the past few weeks as I said my final goodbye to my paternal grandmother as she made her transition. As I feel the grief, it also brings back the poignant loss of my father several years ago. I have been reflecting on the treasures they passed on in the form of musical and poetic passion. In their native country of Honduras, my family was very poor but rich in spirit, curiosity, intelligence and passion. A love of literature, poetry, and music was the fuel that fed their inspiration and ambition to create a life beyond the cruel and crushing poverty they endured before they came to the United States.
As I was born and raised here in the US, as was my mom (with roots in New Mexico and Mexico), I cannot even comprehend the profundity of their Honduran experience (Honduras literally translates to “depths”), but through the poetry and music they loved, I catch a glimpse of what it means.
I often heard recited the works of Pablo Neruda, Rubén Darío, Juan Ramon Molina, Walt Whitman, and countless other poets both Latin and American. Grandma loved romantic music and would continuously play Julio Iglesias and Luis Miguel. She had a passion for tango and would often dance very dramatically at our family Christmas parties in Los Angeles. While my father loved anything from Nina Simone to the romantic boleros/ballads of Latin America, he was a revolutionary in his soul. He loved the Nueva Canción singer Mercedes Sosa, who passed on just a few weeks ago, as well as songs of the Cuban revolution and Spanish Civil War.
I’ll first start with a favorite poem of both my grandmother and my father. She recited the first few stanzas less than week before her death. This is “A Roosevelt” by Nicaraguan Poet Rubén Darío, recited by Jorge Cafrune. The English translation is “To Roosevelt”:
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