Poplar Sculpture: an encounter with poetry

Plaza del Álamo. Miraflores de la Sierra.

After more than three centuries, the old Miraflores poplar died of Dutch Elm disease in the 1980s, leaving behind a great void in the history of Miraflores and its people.

 Its rusty trunk was the only thing left, a reminder of its physical beauty and strength. Since 2017 only a bronze replica of its remains continues to exist.

This recent legend of the Sierra de Guadarrama brings back memories of enjoyable moments lived by neighbours and visitors, including philosophers such as Ortega y Gasset and poets such as Vicente Aleixandre, winner of the Nobel Prize in Poetry.

Under this tree and on countless occasions, Aleixandre witnessed gatherings and listened to poems. He dedicated a famous poem “called The Alamo” to this tree. The poem begins as follows:

“In the centre of the village was left the large tree. It was a minimal square, but the old tree overflowed it whole. “

A place for rest and reverie through this new life of the old poplar.