Carmen Rezendes (d. October 10, 2021)

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Carmela querida —  you chose to leave us on the very day of my 86th birthday; a birthday gift of sorts, I guess, to embark on your last adventure on that day. I loved you from the moment we met 54 years ago when I came to interview to teach at Laney College. You leave a deep hole filled only by the memories we made together in our long and rich friendship. I hold you in my heart, my thoughts, my prayers. Here is the poem that I wrote for you many years ago as you embarked on one of your many adventures. Carry the wind-song in your forever and to nowhere final journey. 

Wind-Song for Prince Henry’s Daughter

                        Cuatro cosas tiene el hombre
                        que no sirven en la mar:
                        ancla, gobernalle y remos,
                        y miedo de naufragar.
                                                                     

                                        Antonio Machado
 
                            for Carmen
 

Take a sextant to watch the stars by
         & cut the firmament in sixths;
take an astrolabe
         (because it has a lovely name),
& bees’ wax,
         not against the sirens’ song
         you wouldn’t want to miss,
but because you might want
         the smell of flowers
just for one moment on the wine-dark sea.
 
Take one secret word you’ll want to roll

         & knead within your mind,

a few friends’ names
         (to invoke the angels by),
& a small mirror
                  scratched with this charm:
 
         there is one center to the universe
         & it moves to wherever you are.

 
 

                         ~ Rafael Jesús González

(Hawaii Review; Vol. 3 no. 2, Fall 1973; author’s copyrights.)

Carmen & Rafael, early 70s

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