Juan Manuel Sánchez - Buenos Aires 1930 - October 5, 2016
Wednesday, October 05, 2016
With Linda |
I have had many wonderful surrogate fathers in my life. I
wrote about it here. Today the last of them died at age 86.
In many ways I feel as if I were on a long rail car
accompanied by people behind me and to my side. The train is plowing through
deep snow and I can see it falling on either side of the windows. The snow thins
out and finally I arrive at the end of the line and find that my long rail car
is empty and I am the only one on board. I step down at the station and in
front of me is a mirror. I look into it and I see an old man.
I grieve for the loss of Juan Manuel Sánchez and I can
only find solace that I spent a lot of time together with him in Buenos Aires
in April. He was beginning to slip with his memory but he was alert enough that
I cajoled him to draw a bit for me. This he did. As I said goodbye there was
that smile with that slight downturn of a tango. I did not know then but I
should have known.
With Julia |
Thanks to Juan I am better person and maybe even an
artist.
Juan Manuel Sánchez - The Essence of a Woman
Juan Manuel Sánchez y su modelo
Juan Manuel Sánchez - The Essence of a Woman
Juan Manuel Sánchez y su modelo
Limits - Jorge Luís Borges
There is a line of Verlaine that I will not be able to
remember.
There is a street nearby that is widowed of my footsteps,
there is a mirror that has seen me for the last time,
there is a door that I have closed until the end of the
world.
Among the books of my library (I am looking at them)
there is one that I will never open now.
This summer I will be fifty years old;
Death is wearing me away, relentless.
Hay una
línea de Verlaine que no volveré a recordar.
Hay una
calle próxima que está vedada a mis pasos,
hay un
espejo que me ha visto por última vez,
hay una
puerta que he cerrado hasta el fin del mundo.
Entre
los libros de mi biblioteca (estoy viéndolos)
hay
alguno que ya nunca abriré.
Este
verano cumpliré cincuenta años;
La
muerte me desgasta, incesante.
Jorge
Luís Borges
A few days before he died in a moment of poetic lucidity he told his former wife, Nora Patrich who was visiting him at this hospital bed:
Antes que vuele y vuele veni a verme.
Before I fly and fly come and see me.
Juan Manuel Sánchez & Nora Patrich |
A few days before he died in a moment of poetic lucidity he told his former wife, Nora Patrich who was visiting him at this hospital bed:
Antes que vuele y vuele veni a verme.
Before I fly and fly come and see me.