Elías Nandino

Love Without Death
Dust will be, but dust in love.
~Quevedo
__________

I love and the love I feel
I exist, I have life
and I’m burning my escape
ever born.
I love and every moment
love, my death is urged,
a love without measure
in continual burning.
But when love and do not try
because my body off
absorbent earth again:
everything will be devoured,
but not the burning love
dust of my love.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I wanted to feature a Mexican poet. Elías Nandino (1900-1993) was a surgeon from Mexico who was also a poet. Nandino worked as a surgeon at different hospitals during most of his life, during which he also wrote poetry. He was also open about his homosexuality in a time when it was dangerous to do so, but amazingly this did not affect his career as a surgeon.

His early poetry was rather sombre, focusing on topics like death, nighttime and dreams. From the 1950s his poetry became more personal, whereas his later poems combined eroticism and metaphysics.