The summer solstice arrives, days and life become infinite, courses end, farewells are made present to us, what remains of them, the we who we were and continue to be, we want to continue being ... It has made me especially present this week, when contemplating on the twitter of the College of Europe the end-of-year ceremony of the Mario Soares promotion, the 1985-86 end-of-year ceremony of the Columbus promotion, to which I belong.
The buildings of the European construction are inspired by the spirit, the desire of the Congress of The Hague in 1948; and those of the European Union are not only ones built, even though public opinion often tends to see as the only incarnation of that desire. The building, the buildings of the European Union, are based, as I have said on other occasions, on the foundations of the Council of Europe. European construction has also among its buildings a College, the College of Europe, with its founding headquarters in Bruges (Belgium), and later, after the fall of the wall, another campus in Natolin (Poland). It was one of the creatures, of the constructions conceived at the Congress of The Hague, at the proposal of one of its conveners and factotums, Salvador de Madariaga, who gives us Spaniards the honour of telling, despite the sad time we lived then , with one of the founding fathers of Europe, and with the first Rector of the College of Europe.
Europe has a College of Europe. Its founders considered that Europe was something to educate, teach, learn, build on the persons, to live in coexistence and mutual knowledge among Europeans. It has been creating and has its traditions, such as the inaugural lesson by one of the builders of Europe of the present time, or that of giving each promotion the name of one of the personalities who have contributed to make Europeans who we are today, who have left their mark and reference, their exemplarity, in the soul of Europe. In that academic year, when Spain and Portugal made effective, on the first January 1986 their adhesion to the then European Communities, in which the Spaniards and Portuguese were especially numerous among the one hundred and twenty students of twenty different nationalities, the inaugural lecture was delivered by the President of the Government Felipe González, and our named was called Christopher Columbus. It is an honour and a responsibility, a commitment to have passed through its classrooms. One of the satisfactions and gifts that life has brought me to be part of it, to share that satisfaction, that feeling, that joy with my colleagues in it, with whom as part of it since then we have travelled the path of life and of History, we build Europe outwards and inwards.
The College of Europe teaches Law, Economics, Administration, Politics, International Relations and History of Europe. Part of it can be forgotten or become outdated, since it is not in vain that Europe evolves and transforms itself during the lives of its alumni, and also because of them. Oblivion does not dwell in the soul of Bruges; but rather the soul of Bruges grows and lives among those of us who studied at the College of Europe, among those who walk through life as part of the Christopher Columbus promotion.Since we have not passed through Bruges; but Bruges through us, to us, and in us forever dwells. The soul of Europe feeds the soul of Bruges. We feed the soul of Europe. The common soul feeds the individual soul. The individual soul feeds the common soul. Each one of us is inhabited by a fallen piece of the universal soul that seeks to reunite with the others. Europe is built on the soul, it is built with the soul. We are Bruges. We are Europe.
I was a student in Bruges, and also a poet. Since, among the channels of Bruges, at that juncture leading up to integration in the labour market, at a crossroads towards professional definition - which in my case chose to confirm a vocation towards diplomacy that, together with writing, had caught my attention since my early youth - the water of poetry flowed, intense and continuous, especially in the first months of 1986, embodied in the books of poems Los paraísos perdidos (The lost paradises), Los trabajos de Hércules (The Works of Hercules), Poemas del Sueño de Iberia (Poems of Iberia’s dream) and Brujas (Bruges), which are part of my book Mundo. Una geografía poética (World. A poetic geography). This includes a good part of my poetic work, gathered as a world, a poetic geography, which we illuminate in our passage through life in our interior space, in which Bruges is especially present
One of the poems written there in the spring of 1986 - included in the Brujas poetry book published in Mundo - saying that "Algún día nadie creerá / que estuvimos en Brujas…" ("Someday no one will believe / that we were in Bruges ..."). After the 25th anniversary dinner of our promotion, in which many of us met again in Brussels, I added a third to the two original stanzas that said that “Someday no one will believe / that twenty-five years / later / Bruges was still / inside / us ”. On the afternoon and evening of May 21, 2016, the ceremony and dinner of the thirtieth anniversary took place at the headquarters of the College in Bruges, experience and verification that thirty years had not passed through us, but we had passed through them, that a common soul of Bruges inhabited us and lives above and below the passage of time. Capturing it and answering the questions it asks us thirty years later is due to its continuation in Alma de Brujas (Soul of Bruges), which I began to write the following day at Brussels airport during the long hours I had to stay there when my flight was cancelled for a security issue, and I finished in the days after. It is dedicated to my colleagues from the Christopher Columbus promotion, and constitutes above all a celebration of friendship and time, the commitment and the questions, about Europe and about life, which do not pass, or through time pass, of the soul that through it we find in the other, in the others with whom we are.
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I shared Alma de Brujas with my promotion colleagues - with whom we keep in touch, first through an email group, then through the WhatsApp group that we created at that dinner - first in Spanish; and then, at the requests of many, in English, a language in which I also decided to write it, so that everyone could understand it, so that all of us could share it. It is precisely now the thirty-fifth anniversary of our promotion, and I and the reader could well - should in any case every year counting the years elapsed since 1986 - write a new verse saying thirty-five or whatever years later instead of thirty, when it was written, or more precisely continued to be written. We, the colleagues of the Christopher Columbus promotion could well also, if the pandemic had not led to the cancellation of the alumni dinners this year, celebrate, as is tradition, our thirty-fifth anniversary with a dinner at the College of Europe in Bruges, like five years ago the one that inspired the writing of Soul of Bruges. Because I do not resign myself, we do not resign ourselves, to this anniversary happening as if nothing happened, to celebrate it and celebrate life, to illuminate it and share it, as a letter in the bottle I launch this Soul of Bruges to the sea of the web, with the hope of may it reach your shore, that it may nourish and inspire the soul of Europe in you and in everyone.
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To my colleagues
and companions
of the Columbus Promotion,
and to the soul
of Bruges
which inhabits
in ours
One day nobody will believe
that we were in Bruges
that only an Army of solitude
and seaguls
greeted our descent to the channels
at dawn
that we read a million sentences
and nobody asked for justice
that even the sky cried
full of mercy
the tears we did not have.
Nobody will believe either that, tired,
the gods
abandoned us
and went
on hunger strike
of blood in the veins
of stares at the eyes
of untold words
and poetry
that they accepted at last
that there was nothing to be done
with us
and, resigned, they asked for
the unemployment benefit.
Some day nobody will believe
that twenty five years
later
Bruges remained
inside
us.
One day nobody will neither believe
that thirty years
later
thirty years
had not passed
through us:
we
had passed
through them
we
had passed
to them.
That thirty
years later,
when we celebrated
the Thirtieth Anniversary
of the Columbus Promotion,
we realized
that thirty
years had not
passed since
we were
in Bruges,
but it is already
for thirty
years that we are
in Bruges,
in the Bruges
which is
in
us
the Bruges
that
we are.
The blood
of the Bruges
which inhabits
in us
does not flow
through its channels,
neither can be seen
its soul
with the eyes,
nor be heard
its voice
with the ears;
but with the soul.
Since the Bruges
which inhabits
in each one
of us
is a piece
of the fallen
soul
of Bruges
when thirty
years ago
we were
in Bruges
we were
in us
we were
us
heart that ever since
beats
in the soul
the blood
of Bruges
so that we may be
we continue to be
always
the self
and the us
that we were
and are
in Bruges.
Bruges lives
in each piece
of its soul
fallen
in ours,
but only when
these scattered pieces
joint together
is its soul
complete.
As one soul
cannot fully be
but in another
soul,
and neither can
we
fully be
us
without being
in the soul
of Bruges,
the soul
of Bruges.
All
and each
of us
have
the key
of the soul
of Bruges,
since it
opens
lights
when the fallen
piece
which in each one
of us
inhabits
looks for
the ohers
calls them
or remembers
or yearns
for them.
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When, as tonight
in Bruges,
it smily has posed
with all
of us
for the family
or promotion
photo
we have made
before beginning
the Thirtieth Anniversary
dinner;
or when it peeps
in the conversations
around the table
which continue
at the point
we had left them
in “pause”,
as if nothing
or everything
had happened
meanwhile;
or it wishes
to dance again
as always
its music,
and it moves our bodies
that don’t get tired
- …Sweet dreams are made of this… -
electrified
they dance
inebriated
- …Everybody is looking for something… -
by its breath
which blows
until bursting out
fulls us
of life
wich overflown evaporates
in the movement
of the dance
and the eternity
of instants;
or we take
the last drink
for the umpteenth time
in the day
(rather in the night)
at L’Estaminet,
which so many memories
preserves
of old conversations
we would like
to continue
till the eternity
in which the night
loses its hours,
until the channels
call us
to walk by them
and hear in their waters
the silence and the dreams
of the sleeping
city,
until only an Army
of solitude
and seagulls
as always greets
our steps
at dawn.
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The soul of Bruges
is young,
and so we
are.
When right now,
thirty years after,
or whenever,
at any moment
in which may become present
that evening
of poetry
and music
and surprises of reality
and magic
and illusion
to slowly savor
like a juicy fruit
life
till getting drunk
of it
to give birth
to the Sun
in the night of the brightness
of the candles
shock smile
and freedom
to be you
and joy of having been born
in the Mediterranean
which took place
at the imperial appartments
of Patricia Barreto
at Ridderstraat, Bruges
that night of the day of Venus
of the Crescent
of February,
to enter in which it was only
necessary
to show the passport
of your smile
and an old empty envelope
anyone
full of one hundred grams of imagination
and dreams
and a handful of salt
from the Earth,
and in which in premiere
for those present
for the first time I recited
the verses
of The Works of Hercules
I had just
written
I had just
brought to light
to lift the World
with them;
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at any moment
in which may become present
the dream
of Europe
which dreams
Bruges
and in
Bruges
is dreamt;
or in which we receive
an e-mail
or a postcard
or a journal
from Malachy;
or call each other
or meet
at any place
where we are
in Bruges;
or become present
so many moments
worth to have
lived
which have made life
worth to live
stars
illuminating the sky
of our inner
space
water of the river
of time
which flows
inside us
and crosses
our poetical
Geography.
(Sometimes we strangely
forget
that our name is not
only
Manuel Montobbio
Malachy Hargadon
María Luisa Silva
Catarina Marques de Almeida Vaz Pinto
Maria Patricia Simoes de Carvalho Salvaçao Barreto
Begoña Lasagabaster Olazabal
Margaritis Schinas
Paola Puoti
Ana Paula Ramalho de Mesquita
Paola Borrachini
Marina Averani
Jaap Verraes
Chris Hoonaert
Mikel Landabaso
Valentí Llagostera
Irene Van Affelen
Christina Vatsos
Donato Attubato
Mirari Barrena Longarte
Leyre Barrena Longarte
Kenty Richardson
Pedro Cymbron
Rui Nuno Baleiras
Isabel Molina Roig
Francina Esteve García
Luis Padilla Macabeo
Carlos Canino Díaz
Mercedes Alonso Frayle
Antonio de Castro
Juan Manuel Pérez Dorao
Luc Bool
Maria Joao Da Cunha y Da Silva
Fuensanta Candela
Catherine Le Page
Jorge Martí Moreno
Mercedes Alvargonzález
Nicolás Díaz de Lezcano Múxica-León
Marianne Bakker
Isabel Fortuna de Oliveira
Pedro Dias Capucho
Conor Maguire…
(please add your name
after the ellipsis
in case it was not
in the list).
Sometimes we strangely
forget
that our name is
also
Cristopher Columbus).
One day nobody will believe neither
that thirty years later
the gods were satiated
of blood in the veins
of stares at the eyes
of told words
and of poetry
they had even forgotten
how hunger
of them
was like
since they had settled to live
with us
in the Bruges
which inhabits
inside us
and felt at home
as if it were the Olympus
when the pieces
of the soul
of Bruges
join together.
The soul
of Bruges
is fed
of the dreams
of Bruges
the dreams
of each one
of us
the dream
to be
us
the dream
to be
in Bruges
the dream
to be
Bruges.
We are
Bruges
and the dream
of Bruges
is fed
by the dream
of Europe,
which is the dream
which at night
the College
of Europe
dreamt to teach us,
although at day
it made us read a million
sentences
and nobody asked for justice.
And thirty years later
it asks us
what have we done of the argument
of our hope
what
Europe
have we written
with our life
in the world
and in life
what
Europe
do we dream
for our daughters
and our sons
what do we want that about
Europe
they will be taught
at the College
of Europe
what are we going to do
for Europe
that so much
and all
for us
has done
with what dreams
what facts
are we going to feed
the soul
of Europe
that feeds
the soul
of Bruges.
Bruges is a gun loaded
of future:
to the heart it shoots us
its questions.
To answer them we do have
thirty years
and all life
ahead of us
to write with it
how we would like
that this poem
may continue
till the Sixtieth Anniversary
of the Columbus Promotion
and beyond,
beyond
life
and the life
of life.
Until the day
in which nobody will believe
that in another life
we were
in Bruges,
where life was more
alive
and the gods stayed to live
with us,
and that
in Bruges
we are yet,
we are always
in Bruges,
and with us
in us
we carry it,
in and through any
of the lives
of life.
As we are
Bruges.
One day, definitively, nobody will believe
that we were not
in Bruges.
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