Archive for the ‘Pablo Neruda’ Tag
White Prickly Poppies Have A Natural Crinked Look (Near a High Desert Highway)– Image by kenne
Without
disdain
for the gifts
of the earth,
the capital’s
abundant curves,
or the purple
initial
of wisdom,
you
taught me
to be an American,
you lifted my eyes
to books,
toward
the treasure
of the grain:
broad poet,
across the
clarity
of the plains,
you made me see
the high mountain
as my guardian.
Out of the subterranean
echo
you collected
everything
for me,
everything that grew,
you gathered the harvest
galloping through the alfalfa,
cut the poppies for me,
followed the rivers
to arrive in the kitchen
by afternoon.
— from Ode to Walt Whitman by Pablo Neruda
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Tom Turner — Image by kenne
The poem “Invisible Man,” by Pablo Neruda gets inside me, stirring my very being, mixing the past, present and images of the future. The poem has short lines making it seem longer than it is. Even so, I’m sharing some of Neruda’s powerful lines, which I have read, reread contemplating thoughts of my brother, Tom and existential invisibility.
“they fire against the people,
which is to say,
against poetry,
but my brother
the poet
was in love,
or was suffering
because all his emotion
is for the sea,
he loves remote ports
for their names,
and he writes about oceans
he doesn’t know,
when life is as full
as an ear of corn with grain
he passes by, never knowing
how to harvest it,
he rides the waves
without ever touching land,
and, occasionally,
he is profoundly moved
and melancholy,
he is too big
to fit inside his skin,
he gets tangled and untangles himself,
he declares he is maudit,
with great difficulty he carries the cross
of darkness,
he believes that he is different from
anyone else in the world,
he eats bread every day
but he’s never seen a
baker
or gone to a meeting
of a baker’s union,
and so my poor brother
is deliberately dark,
he twists and writhes
and finds himself
interesting,
interesting,
that’s the word,
I am no better
than my brother,
but I smile,
because when I walk through the streets
the only one who does not exist
life flows around me
like rivers,
I am the only one
who is invisible,
no mysterious shadows,
no gloom and darkness,
everyone speaks to me,
everyone wants to tell me things,
to talk about their relatives,
their misery and
their joy,
everyone passes by, and everyone
tells me something,
look at all the things they do!”
— from Invisible Man by Pablo Neruda
(Click here to read the complete poem.)
“Where do you go when you’ve already gone?”
— from Tom Turner’s notes
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Sabino Canyon Panorama #3 (August 9, 2016) — Image by kenne
Pablo Neruda has written,
“….the forests or beside rivers everything speaks to humans.
The desert does not speak. I could not comprehend its tongue;
its silence….”
All nature speaks to humans that seek to connect and listen.
— kenne
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Mushrooms — Image by kenne
I look through the hole and saw a landscape like that behind
our home, uncared for, and wild. I moved back a few steps
because I sensed vaguely that something was about to happen.
— from Childhood and Poetry, by Pablo Neruda
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Morning Meditation — Computer Art by kenne
“Give me silence, water, hope . . .”
— Pablo Neruda
######
I don’t believe in age.
All old people
carry
in their eyes,
a child,
and children,
at times
observe us with the
eyes of wise ancients.
Shall we measure
life
in meters or kilometers
or months?
How far since you were born?
How long
must you wander
until
like all men
instead of walking on its surface
we rest below the earth?
— from Ode to Age by Pablo Neruda
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“Free Flight into the Wordless” — Image by kenne
Poetry is a deep inner calling in man: from it came liturgy, the
psalms, and also the content of religions. The poet confronted
nature’s phenomena and in the early ages called himself a priest,
to safeguard his vocation. . . . Today’s social poet is still a member
of the earliest order of priests. In the old days he made his
pact with the darkness, and now he must interpret the light.
— Pablo Neruda
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