The 19th century was saying goodbye when Rubén Martínez Villena was born on December 20, 1899, in the town of Alquízar.
The Dominican Máximo Gómez would announce to the little one: “Your life will have full middle day light” and the omen would be fulfilled.
In only 35 years of life, the prodigal son of Alquizar surrendered mountains and stars, as he would express in the last verse of one of his best-known compositions, which could be a summary and expression of a life dedicated to noble causes and the highest ideals.
He defeated mountains when in a public act he starred in the protest of the 13, against the corruption of the Zayas government or when he founded the Cuban action phalanx.
He defeated mountains with his decisive participation in the organization of the general strike of August 1933 against Machado whom he aptly called donky with claws.
But he also defeated the stars with verses of significant strength and intensity from which a fine and scathing irony appears at times like that of the well-known posthumous farce.
The sister of his close friend and revolutionary, Pablo de la Torriente Brau, when describing the last moments of Rubén’s life, between two and four in the morning of January 16, 1934, would say:
“He did not speak with the pain of those who feel that life is going away, but with the eloquent conviction of those who know that man passes, situations change and only the people remain, eternally renewing themselves.”
He was clear and transparent and elevated at the same time for those demanding of creative serenity.
Precocious death could not extinguish the promising sun in Villena’s eyes, that look marked by fire and passion that would impress Máximo Gómez, when he got on a train in which Rubén traveled with his father, when he was barely child.
The light of his insomniac pupil not only recreates the present dreamed of but is also projected imperishable in the future.
