* The authors are part of the community of La Vanguardia readers
La Huella De Salduba presents three poems from Life in the Town, by Miguel Ángel Rincón Peña, from Ronda by birth and resident in Prado del Rey (Cádiz) for more than half of his life.
Miguel Ángel is a technician in Social Integration and works in Special Education. He is a film buff, fond of photography, music… and, above all, literature. He has several published collections of poems and two novels.
I also bathed my childhood
in a galvanized metal bathtub,
and they removed the scab from my knees
with a bar of soap.
When five o’clock struck
I also had a snack
sitting on the threshold of the house
a few ounces of chocolate and bread.
I also played the game
mounted on a soda box
sliding down the slope
steepest in Las Lomas.
And when the dark night came
ran up the street
(like wolves run at dusk)
in search of home and its warmth.
We played at piloting spaceships
inside the room. we dreamed
with being cosmonauts and sailing
through unknown galaxies.
That was in the mornings,
in the afternoons we dreamed
with being footballers and winning La Liga
of our four streets.
At night we painted hopscotches
and we played on the sidewalks.
The elders sat in the fresh air
while they watched us out of the corner of their eye.
Eva, Sonia, Agustín and me
we fantasized on summer nights
running around the corners
until it was time to sleep.
Friend, come and tell me
that one day we were little,
I didn’t make it up.
The tool workbench
ready to transform wood
in door or window; in dresser or closet;
in a cradle or in a coffin.
They entered the carpentry
some fragile rays
announcing a bright spring,
mixing the smell of sawdust
with the fragrance of the first orange blossom.
Right at the door there was (and still is)
an orange tree of sour oranges.
I played with the ants that tried
climb its trunk on those Saturday mornings.
How far everything is now. . .
The artisan carpenter,
the parish organist,
the communist of the Heart of Jesus
It now rests, dignified, in a small niche.
Spring, grandpa, has come again.
The town, your town, is overflowing with light.
I wish you could see it from your height…
