ALBARADA

Philip Larkin es un poeta extraordinario y, como dice mi comadre Yolanda Blasco a propósito de ciertas cualidades con las que no siempre me siento identificado, “tan humano…”. ¿En qué consiste su “humanidad”? Sus poemas son ásperos y a menudo, de tan escatológicos, resultan casi vulgares. Larkin era dipsómano, de opiniones políticas reaccionarias y de una lubricidad inquietante; y no obstante sus versos están tan próximos, tan al alcance de la sensibilidad auténtica que se diría dan pauta de un lirismo insólito por venir de un poeta moderno. Quizá por eso un crítico español lo calificó de ramplón en la reseña de uno de mis libros, aprovechando así para de paso descalificar mis gustos literarios. 

En 1977 descubrí por casualidad en el Times Literary Suplement este poema sobre la madrugada que Larkin asocia lúcidamente con la conciencia de la muerte. Desde entonces, lo he leído infinidad de veces y en cada ocasión vuelve a impresionarme por la concisión y la síntesis sobre un asunto –la muerte– que bien es verdad puede resultar o inútilmente morboso o muy vulgar –como el amor, por ejemplo. 

Iwork all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
–The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused – nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;

But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says
No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear – no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,

The anasthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Es de madrugada, aún no ha amanecido, es la misma aubade de Philip Larkin. De pronto me detengo en la frase “One side will have to go.” ¿Cuál? ¿El alma, el cuerpo? Esa incertidumbre explica el miedo a la muerte y mi pesadumbre y la desazón que siento en esta madrugada.