Antonio Botero Palacio: When a poet leaves.

Antonio Botero Palacio: When a poet leaves.

At the age of 92, the poet, narrator, and historian Antonio Botero Palacio, who for more
than half a century, was the cultural and humanistic beacon of Magangué.
If he had lived a hundred years, he would have completed a century telling wonderful stories and
beautiful poems.
Antonio Botero Palacio (Mesopotamia, La Unión, Antioquia, 1927- Medellin-December 15, 2019),
who shortly before leaving, was planning another dream beyond death: the impossible dream of
creating a library of clouds, of continuing to love the creatures of the water and the land, as I love
them Antonio was more than a poet, novelist, historian, and cultural manager. He lived for more
than half a century at the foot of the Magangué port. We owe him so many silent and fruitful
feats. He was the creator of the Magangué public library, the history academy, the Casatabla
Cultural Center, dreamer of neighborhoods, and promoter of hospitals, nursing homes, among
others. Founding member of the Villa de Magangué History Center. Member of the Mompox
History Academy and Member of the Costa Rican Writers Association. Sensitive, memorable,
humanist, he exercised the enchanting magisterium of poetry, enlightened speech and the
forgotten art of serving others in his 92-year pilgrimage. If he had been a teacher, he would have
taught students to fall in love with poetry.

Author of the autobiographical novel "At the end of innocence", the collection of poems
"Los lagares del alma", a monograph by Magangué, a historical essay on Uribe Uribe's
route and in the War of the Thousand Days, The Battle of Magangué, the history of La
Unión (Antioquia), the collection of poems "Song for a Farewell", and the most recent
essay on the poetic work of Óscar Delgado (1910-1937): 'Luna para piano'. He was a moral
oak, a forest with deep roots between the mountain and the sea, a singular creature that
managed to combine the businessperson with the humanist, the poet with the schoolmaster.
He had a collection of boats that replicated the steamer 'David Arango'. He left to stay with
us forever.
I would not have written so many books, if I had continued as an entrepreneur

BOOK
Passing through the Magangué port, in 2018, in front of the Albarrada where the maestro Antonio
Botero saw the legendary ship David Arango burn in 1961, digging in his trunks, he showed me the
originals of a book about his discovery of the poet Óscar Delgado, and I was quick to tell him that I
was taking on the challenge of publishing it. if he had not lived in the port of magangue, he would
not have been so inspired to write poetry

How did this miracle happen that someone like Botero came down from the mountain, was
bewitched by the music of the river like a floating purple flower in the waters of Óscar
Delgado, and went out to chase and decipher a forgotten perfume?
POETRY DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ANTONIO BOTERO PALACIO

I
Sore verse rhyme
Complaining in context
He carries his wounded song
And a sadness inside
Suffer his pain and torment
Feeling abandoned
Someone who has cultivated it
He left our environment
On a journey of no return
Where God has called him

II
Orphan of that pen
That made it shiny
Today he grieves and feels
Like floating in the haze
Of that poet none
A new letter will be born
But it will be remembered
Like that great exponent
That of his vein and his mind
The verse will eternalize

III
The river Magdalena cries
That to its singing waters
He carried his prose and his rhyme
On full moon nights
And in a serene dawn
In front of the balcony of oblivion
I found another reason
To exalt his excellence
For bringing us your presence
To our dear people

IV
The Albarrada also moans
Our hymn goes into mourning
There is absolute silence
At each new dawn
Today I do not hear his tune
Facing that great Suan
Where the iguanas go
 Showing survival
Despite the existence
Of a time that looks bad

V
Rests in our memory
His cultural legacy
That can be consulted today
In our history center
To God be the glory
For having granted us
This great adopted son
That has marched to heaven
Goodbye ANTONIO BOTERO
in Magangué you are still alive.

AUTHOR Carlos Antonio Petano Guzmán

EVER LO QUE ESTA CON ROJO ES TUYO