True Friendship: José Lezama Lima, María Zambrano

Abstract

Much has been written about the friendship between María Zambrano and José Lezama Lima, anecdotes and legends immersed in that “verba criolla” that becomes part of the “friendly company” that united them for life, links of intellect and heart that were decisive in sealing a pact. The council of light where María Zambrano and José Lezama Lima find their most certain dialogue, extended ties that began since their first meeting, is a matter of intense mystery that goes beyond a visible sign to reach the figurations that become an image from a disassociated presence and, as such, an absence that is later reconstructed.

The image that María Zambrano unravels of Lezama, once the bridge from life to death has been crossed, is not the disintegration of the body or its identity, but the interweaving of substances that already in harmony reach a freedom of the soul. Thus arises the image of the “true man” of José Lezama Lima, when his earthly reality withdraws, a certain look that supports an understanding seen in Sufi mysticism, through whose patterns he can see the immense stature of the friend beyond his death, “illuminating feeling” that elevates the poet to the dimension of the “man of light”.