The death of a friend is equally painful for our hearts as it is for our mother tongue. 75 years after the death of the poet Miguel Hernández (1910-1942), descendants of his sister Elvira decided that it was time to bring to light "a treasure jealously guarded for three generations":
a never before published poem by Hernández. It is an elegy dedicated to the death of his friend Manolo, a water seller from Orihuela, his hometown. "Just before your marriage, you have drowned. / And a woman tortures her tresses, / yearning for an elm steering wheel, / mourning a boyfriend of enduring anvils, / whose heart was like a resonant bell tower, / shedding wages on the ground, which you had joined / to pay for orange blossoms and a son. / And that other woman, your mother, so petty / the one who had to raise you on weeds and crumbs, / wails and insults you because now she has to pay for your burial." Thus begins the elegy, titled “A mi amigo Manolo, aguador ahogado ("For my friend Manolo, drowned water seller," which has been published by the cultural supplement of the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, together with a note written by Mar Campelo Moreno, grand-niece of the poet and professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the Boston University in Madrid.
