Family and friends say goodbye to the author of ‘Elegía del Sureste’ and ‘Memoria de una arcadia’ in a ceremony in which ‘Nuestro amor’, a musicalized poem dedicated to the love of his life, his wife Teresa, sounded
Francisco Sánchez Bautista (“because they have seen my eyes / a lot of human sadness and have hated / and suffered the unfairness of this land, / they say that I am bitter”) was fired this Sunday at the Jesús de Murcia Funeral Parlor by a grateful family (his daughters Teresa and María Antonia, and their sisters Verónica, Magdalena and Lola) and a handful of friends with heavy hearts. No authorities came.
It was a simple job, with music performed live by the musicians Iñaki Verástegui and Margarita Muñoz Escolar,
a musical farewell to a poet who studied and performed music from the best classics from the age of 14 to 25, with maestro Cámaras, as he recalled in his last book, ‘Rondo caprichoso’ (Real Academia Alfonso X El Sabio, 2017), dedicated to his wife, Teresa: «Between poetry and music, whims also occupy a high and beautiful place» . Among the songs chosen to honor the most original of Murcian rhapsodies were ‘Largo’ from ‘Invierno’, by Vivaldi; ‘El oboe de Gabriel’, by Ennio Morricone, from the movie ‘The mission’; ‘I had a farm in Africa’, by John Barry, from the soundtrack of ‘Out of Africa’, and a song composed by Sánchez Bautista himself based on one of his poems, ‘Nuestro amor’, dedicated to the love of his life, his wife, Teresa, who died a few years ago.
«For everyone I write»
“Bricklayer, fisherman, man of the people, he who works and is silent, I write for everyone”, said the writer born in Llano de Brujas and Favorite Son of Murcia, after 96 years walking “back and forth with his life to get rid of his living claw ». The poet who raised his voice from the orchard of Murcia and the most barren wasteland of Fortuna (“my voice from earth, my song from the humblest ashes”) will continue to live in his work, enriching the soul of new readers with his “long and fortunate lucidity “, as the emeritus professor of the University of Murcia Francisco Javier Díez de Revenga said.
The death of the Murcian writer who has best described these lands of thirst and anguish and its fruits (“hairy peach, explosive orange, sour lemon, your mouth makes me water. Your juices quenched my thirst when the summer stinging my back”) This weekend he opened the trunks of many memories, to which they returned, from his hand, vivid memories of so many childhoods that smelled of vegetables, “of flower, of fruit, of sorregada earth.” The poet who felt led “to a dreamlike kingdom of flavors”, also a troubadour, ethnographer and postman of verses, dedicated a ‘Birthday Trova’ to his mother, María de los Ángeles Bautista, when he turned 100 around the year 2000 Well, I had seen three centuries, “my mother”: “I remember you in all your ages,” he said, “but I don’t want to remember – although I do remember – the unfortunate days, the sorrows and misfortunes that once plagued you” .
“Holm oak that endures gales”
That will have to be done, his relatives agreed this Sunday, to remember him as he had his mother in mind, “always strong and rooted, like an oak that endures gales.” Those present at this farewell praised his simplicity and his status as the most veteran academic of the Royal Academy Alfonso X el Sabio, a man of ethical and moral heights. José Luis Martínez Valero, Caty García Cerdán, Santiago Delgado, Aurora Gil Bohórquez, Salvador García Jiménez, Adolfo Fernández Aguilar, Isabel Martínez Llorente, Pedro López Martínez, Francisco Calvo, Alfonso Pacheco, Inma Martín, Pepe Conesa, Isabel Hernández Monllor, Mariola Monllor (widow of Pepe El Largo, the sculptor Hernández Cano) and José Antonio Postigo, a brother like few, among others, praisingly remembered an unforgettable man, the poet of landscape and nature with their own language, as valued by the famous Azorín .
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