From “Ode to Common Things” by Pablo Neruda

“I love
all things,
not because they are passionate or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don’t know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine:
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms,
glasses, knives and
scissors —
all bear
the trace
of someone’s fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.”

 

from “Ode to Common Things” by Pablo Neruda

It’s the birthday of Pablo Neruda (1904)

The wind is a horse:

hear how he runs

through the sea, through the sky…

Exerpted from WIND ON THE ISLAND 

from The Captain’s Verses

Translated by Donald D. Walsh

Pablo Neruda (1904-1972)

Leaning into the Afternoons (Translated by W.S. Merwin)

 

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets

toward your oceanic eyes.

 

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens

   and flames,

its arms turning like a drowning man’s.

 

I send out red signals across your absent eyes

that move like the sea near a lighthouse.

 

You keep only darkness, my distant female,

from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

 

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets

to that sea that beats on your marine eyes.

 

The birds of night peck at the first stars

that flash like my soul when I love you.

 

The night gallops on its shadowy mare

shedding blue tassels over the land.

Pablo Neruda, One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda (translated by Mark Eisner)

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

 

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

From The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, 2004

Neruda’s “Poetry”

"....among violent fires...."

 

Poetry

And it was at that age…Poetry arrived in search of me.  I don’t know, I don’t know whereit came from, from winter or a river. I don’t know how or when, no, they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me.   I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire, and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe.   And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.   – Pablo Neruda (translated by Alastair Reid)  (from www.poemhunter.com)