The famed Nicaraguan poet, priest and revolutionary Ernesto Cardenal died on March 1, 2020 at the age of 95. Over the years, many of the Quixote Center staff and our partners had met him. Even though he was a public figure, he was also known to be a man of the people, approachable and warm. 

His poetry expressed the complexities of his relationship to his Nicaraguan homeland, the natural world, and the United States. His life showed much of the same complexity. After graduating from the UNAM in Mexico, he continued his studies at Columbia University and returned to the United States to study under Thomas Merton in his Trappist community. From Cardenal’s early collection, Gethsemani, KY, we find a poem, which I have translated below, that gives a glimpse into how he understood the contemplative life in relationship to the realities of consumer society:

In the night lit up by words:

PEPSI-COLA

PALMOLIVE CHRYSLER COLGATE CHESTERFIELD

that flicker on and off on and off,

the red green blue lights of hotels and of bars

and of movie theaters, the Trappists go up to the choir loft 

and light the fluorescent lamps

and open their great psalters and antiphonaries

among millions of radios and televisions.

They are the lamps of the prudent virgins awaiting

their husband in the US night! 

From Kentucky, he moved to Antioquía, Colombia for seminary studies before settling on the island of Mancarrón, the Solentiname island in Lake Nicaragua, where he founded a radical intentional community that welcomed locals and international figures alike to reflect upon the nature of the Gospels as understood in lived experience. He developed a political and social consciousness quite at odds with that of the Catholic hierarchy and increasingly aligned with Sandinista leaders during the insurrection. As Cardenal described the development of the community’s collective conscience through the 1960s and 1970s:

These commentaries on the Gospel were radicalizing us, me and others in the community. Little by little, we found ourselves identifying with the movement in Nicaragua until a moment arrived in which we were practically assimilated to it. Some of the youths already wanted to leave the community to become guerrillas. It took a lot of effort for me to hold them back and a message sent to us by the legendary guerrilla Comandante Marcos was a great aid. He said that we had to maintain the community in Solentiname because it had social, political, military, tactical, and strategic importance for the revolution.

The consequences of that tactical and strategic importance were great. Several members of the community – Cardenal not included – participated in the failed uprising of October 13, 1977, with the goal to take control of a military base in nearby San Carlos. The reprisal was swift, with an aerial bombardment that decimated the island community of Solentiname and scattered the population. 

Even as Cardenal won for his poetry, he was ostracized within the Church – particularly the Vatican – for his support of the Sandinista Revolution and his role as Nicaragua’s Minister of Culture from 1979-1987. He was famously rebuked by John Paul II on his 1983 visit to Nicaragua, who, , scolded him for his role in the government. His priestly ministries were suspended by Rome from 1984 until 2019, when .  

Due to a combination of budgetary problems during the Contra War and what might be described as artistic differences with Rosario Murillo, Cardenal’s Ministry of Culture was closed in 1987. While he expressed a lifelong commitment to the Revolution, Cardenal left the Sandinista party in 1994 and publicly criticized its leaders. 

Although he was openly critical of the Sandinista party, his stature is such that the President and Vice President . As might have been anticipated in the current polarized environment, there have been that the funeral services on March 4 were disrupted by Sandinista “turbas” [mobs]. But this claim is backed up with only a few brief videos supplemented with

According to his wishes, Cardenal will be cremated and the ashes deposited in the Solentiname archipelago that was so dear to him. , however, are stored at the University of Texas at Austin. 

In early 2018, Cardenal released a poem titled “” [“On earth as it is in heaven”], reflecting on faith, mortality and the natural world. To capture the scale of his legacy I end this reflection with my translations of a few passages from this much longer poem:

Billions of galaxies with billions of stars

(there are more than one thousand million galaxies)

our galaxy of trillions of stars

barely one among millions of galaxies

a star gas

and a galaxy gas

I open the window and gaze 

at the stars from which we come

it seems that the universe had a purpose

in which we find ourselves

the universe conscious of itself:

stardust 

that can in the night

gaze at the stars

…………………………………………………………………………………..

We are lavish because of the Sun

always bathing in light and food

light that is food

because plants eat light 

a chemical reaction called photosynthesis

chlorophyll: light from the Sun and water from the Earth

by which plants are green

the variety of shapes and sizes of leaves

one over another fighting for the Sun

and the light made sandwich and made wine

“I am the light,” said Jesus

light and food

the universe is not only for man

and the Good News is for all of creation

the whole world with cries of childbirth

its mystery that surrounds us all

and is almost entirely empty space

…………………………………………………………………………………..

God/Love is not an unmoved mover

but rather change and evolution

the future that calls us

and the resurrection our future

all together in the center of the cosmos

there are many rooms there said Jesus

the Only planet in the solar system 

with lights in the night

And we are God’s dream

God dreams of us

wants us in a different world

without the sins of inequality

the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer

where no one rules over anyone

…………………………………………………………………………………..

The stars are not above

They are atoms like us

born of stardust

and from this same dust are they

Millions of conscious stars

their sacrifices shining all night long

the explosion of supernovas

teaching us how to die

~Rest In Peace, Ernesto

Comments

Fri, 03/06/2020 - 11:13pm

Nicely done, John. A fitting (and educational) tribute.

Sat, 03/07/2020 - 10:09am

You carried the dream when too many of us had forgotten how to dream
You kept hope alive when so many around you wanted to extinguish all hope
You were a faithful disciple even when your Church substituted itself for Christ
Now you are present to us as never before
Muchas gracias Ernesto

Sat, 03/07/2020 - 10:39am

The passing of Ernesto Cardenal may bring different reactions. In the Preface of Apocalypse and other poems ERNESTO CARDENAL, one of the editores , Donald D. Walsh, wrote:
“Most people who knew Cardenal are convinced that he is a saint; others are equally convinced that he is the devil in priestly disguise. I am one of the ‘most people,’….” So am I!

Frank Riley,

fxriley@cox.net

Tue, 03/10/2020 - 5:46pm

Thank you so very much for this tribute to Ernesto. I know so little, but now I know a bit more. Enjoyed and felt deeply his Gorgeous poetry!