Manuel Castañeda González was a poet who was born and died in Santa Cruz de La Palma. Since 1934, he has resided in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where he carried out his entire literary work. His poems have been published in various literary supplements and magazines throughout the Canary Islands, as well as in several publications on the mainland.
He has also contributed to El Papel Literario of El Nacional (Caracas, Venezuela). His published works include: Poemas del amor y del recuerdo (1944), Sombra sin forma (1946), La oscura fuerza entrañada (1952), Habitada noticia (1957), Hombre en pie de victoria (1959), Con clara luz (1969), Por la piel de las islas (1972), and Salvación por la luz (1974). The collection Ventura poética (1979) is an anthology of his poetry, with a preface by Sebastián de la Nuez.
The poet from La Palma and Tenerife also celebrated La Laguna:
Birth
Through the sea and dreams, remote vessels,
through the land and wind – a billowing sail –;
a fruitful hive, bursting with honey,
and in the vine, the blood of Christ, ignited.
From the sea you arrived – a sudden torrent –
from the glaciers of your spring
like the weight of persistent fire,
or like the tumult of a river unrestrained.
You were the summit, rough and rocky,
(where God placed His design one day);
for if Castile was the living blaze,
Dácil, the lightning of an epiphany…
The omen swept across the fertile plain,
with the same force as a sling in flight.
And at the same time, the wind sang in the heights,
and, on the earth, the deep organ of the sky.
Thus you were born, blessed one,
virgin, in a world that filled your astonishment:
towards God the soul, all rejoicing,
and to the Cross firmly clinging, the shoulder.
Manuel Castañeda González
