January 28, 2005
Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca
It was about eight degrees outside. Piles of snow lined the streets and sidewalks. People, faces barely visible behind layers of scarves and hats and clothing, bustling about as if the previous day's snowstorm and it's gift of 20 or so inches of snow were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. A typical winter Sunday in New York City.
I'm walking along Sixth Avenue with my wife and cousin, who has just told me that he was there with my father, pacing the sidewalk in front of the hospital in Cuba, the day I was born.
I am forty years old plus one day, in an arctic New York City, heading towards Central Park down Sixth Avenue, The Avenue of the Americas.
We'd been chatting all this time as we made our way to the park. My cousin telling me about the day I was born, or about the next place of interest we needed to see, or about how cold it is, or about where we're having lunch.
We reach the end of the Avenue of the Americas, where this beautiful New York street, teeming with life and cars and snow meets New York City's Central Park. There's a statue right at the entrance to the park. We all see it, and even though my cousin has seen it a million times and I and the Mrs have not, he doesnt need to tell us who it is up there depicted in bronze atop a pedestal. We all know who it is.
None of us say a word as we cross the street and enter Central Park. Get closer to the statue. We dont need words, we each know what each other is feeling.
There in front of us is José Julian Martí, slumped on his bronze horse, meeting death as he fought for the freedom of his patria. Cuba. The very same country where forty years and one day earlier my father had paced up and down the hospital sidewalk awaiting the birth of his son. The same country that despite Marti's death, along with the death thousands upon thousands of his countrymen, is still not free.
Today is José Martí's birthday. Cuban patriot, poet, writer and martyr.
José Julian Martí
1853 - 1895
If you see a hill of foam
It is my poetry that you see:
My poetry is a mountain
And is also a feather fan.
My poems are like a dagger
Sprouting flowers from the hilt;
My poetry is like a fountain
Sprinkling streams of coral water.
My poems are light green
And flaming red;
My poetry is a wounded deer
Looking for the forest's sanctuary.
My poems please the brave:
My poems, short and sincere,
Have the force of steel
Which forges swords.
The words you see in the background of this page are his, and are the steel that forges my sword.
Posted by Val Prieto at January 28, 2005 08:55 AM
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Comments
What a beautiful post Val. Touching and heartbreaking. Thanks
Posted by: Kathleen at January 28, 2005 10:58 AM
That's one aspect of history they tended to leave out in public schools in the seventies: the short lives that founders sometimes got to see cut off. Marti was only slightly older than 40 when he died. Forty-one, maybe forty-two.
Posted by: Murel Bailey at January 28, 2005 11:51 AM
A wonderful post Val. One day, that dream will be realized, mayhaps one day very soon.
Posted by: Laughing Wolf at January 28, 2005 12:26 PM
"...the steel that forges my sword."
So true.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at January 28, 2005 01:22 PM
So beautiful, Val! I love this story. It makes me proud to remember that one of my ancestors bears the name Marti, too.
Ironically, the other statue at the edge of Central Park is that of Simon Bolivar of Venezuela.
I say it's a sign of something, a portent.
Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at January 28, 2005 01:31 PM
I took have stand infront of this statue and with tears in my eyes have remember our beautiful island and the many members of my family that have died without seeing Cuba again.
Posted by: Victor Silva at January 31, 2005 07:21 PM
