Fernando de la Fuente Callejo

Bradford, MA, USA

Fernando was born in Castrillo de las Piedras, Spain, hometown of the poet Leopoldo Panero. Fernando received his first Master's Degree in Romance Philogy from the University of Madrid, the Complutense; and a second from Boston University in Guidance. From 1955-1975, he taught Spanish, Latin, Greek, Art and Social Studies in Spain and Peru, and from 1986-1995 in public schools in the United States. His teaching nutured his poetry. Favorite authors are: Fr. Luis de Leon, S. Juan de la Cruz, Gongora, Quevedo, Antonio Machado, Lorca and other modern poets. Fernando's book of poems is ready to be published.

The Heart

Tic-tac. Tic-tac. Tic-tac.
My heart, your heart, their heart.
Tic-tac, a doctor. Tic-tac, a priest. Tic-tac, a teacher.
The heart wounded by the scalpel, prayed by the priest, described in a saga.

Tic-tac, an Indian; Tic-tac, a Negro, Tic-tac, a White.
My heart, your heart, their heart.
A British heart, a French heart, a German heart in a picture of blood;
a poem inspiring the love from a heart.
The color of loving in a frame on the wall with their own tic-tac. tic-tac.
An African, and a big, big Indian heart covering the earth
with exotics gods and myths, and dances and tattoos with a hidden heart.

The tic-tac is a young boy, a beautiful girl or an irresistible Don Juan.
The tic-tac is the musical clock of the grandfather.
The music sings the pythonic song:
Mi abuelito tenia un reloj de pared; -- se lo compraron cuando macio;
pero un dia el reloj se paro, -- mi abuelito de pena murio.*
The tic-tac is only a memory, is a note, a drop of rain in the heart of the soul.
The heart, your heart, my heart, their heart will become a hand full of letters
of a word in the wind of a frigid winter; a sight in the mind of a loving wife,
a loving son or a loving daughter tossing flowers to the heart they loved.

*My grandfather had a clock:
he got it when he was born.
But once the clock stopped
and my grandfather of sadness died.