While reading through some poetry books I found this
poem that I thought was good. This poem,
eloquently philosophizing Neruda's definition of
poetry, was featured in the award-winning Italian
film I] Postino, in which Pablo Neruda was a central
character.

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it 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,
likness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

I loved this - it kinda describes me, trying
to write something worth reading. I hope each
of you enjoy this! Regards, Barbara

Barbara,

I enjoy Neruda so much. And Il Positano is quite a movie, hope you take the time to see it if you haven't. I had the pleasure of watching it while I was still living in Italy.

Glad to see you're searching out and reading lots of poems and poets.



------------------
~~Mary

Mary - Thanks so much. Yes, I have been reading,
especially different types of poetry. I'm glad
you enjoyed this one. It brightened my day.
Joy, Barb.

This really belongs in Musing on Mastery. Would you like me to move it there, Barbara?

Kate - please do so. I thought it was good for this
site because there are so many of us that are amateur's
and to me this has lots of substance. Regards, Barb.

Casa de Mantaras en Punta del Este

What a lot falls from the pine,
green mustaches,
music,
pine cones like pinnacles
or armadillos
or like books with leaves you detach.
Also fell on my face
the subtle petal
fastened to a black seed:
it was a hymenopterous wing
of the pine,
a transmigration
of suavities
in which flight joined
roots.

Fall
treedrops,
punctuations,
vowels, consonants,
violins,
falls the rain,
silence,
everything falls from the pine,
from vertical air:
falls the scent,
dark riddled
with day,
night fair
as moon milk,
night black
as that absence.

Comes the dawn.

And falls
a new day
from atop the pine,
falls with its clock,
with its hands
and its hollows,
and darkling the pine
needles sew
another night to daytime,
another day to night,


<font size="1">Neruda, tr. C.M.</size>

Chris - Ah, the beauty of this piece. Soothing and
peaceful to the imagination. I love this!
Regards, Barb.

Count me in as a huge fan of Neruda. I have several of his books and they're looking a little worn from all my page turning. The movie "Il Postino" was fabulous...love that section of the Italian coast and of course, the Neruda storyline.

Nija - Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed poem. I love
to read all of his work too. Regards, Barb.

Forgive me for dissenting from this love-fest,
but except for the early dark Residencia
poems (which Neruda later repudiated as being
all wrong in their darkness, grief, and hopeless-
ness, too bourgeois in their concern for individual
personal feeling, and completely lacking the certainty
and optimism of a faithful Marxist, who is merely one
of the People, who are happy in their revolution) he
has seemed to me mostly a windy rhetorical propagand-
istic self-admiring romantic Commie. I don't use the
word Commie lightly. The truth is (and the bland
evasion of it is what made Il Postinosentimental
and dishonest) that Neruda was an utter and unrepentant Stalinist who passed up no opportunity to praise the nobility and freedom of Mother USSR and to sneer at
the evil and heartless imperialists up north. And to condemn their materialism and greed while himself
living in big beautifully furnished houses and availing
himself of large quantities of the best food and wine.

And nearly all of Kipling is an apologia for English imperialism, written in a thumping militaristic drumbeat of a metre. He was, of course, basically racist (all natives are basically children), sentimental (see If), certainly an apologist for the slaughter of the first world war, thought poor people deserved to be poor and black people were made to be servants.

So there. I can caricature writers just like you.

Personally, I think Neruda is a much more interesting writer than Kipling was ever capable of being. At least he was interested in the world outside his own country's borders and didn't apologise for Western Coca-Cola imperialism. And what's wrong with being an optimist? I like Neruda's Odes to things like the humble tomato.

------------------
Steve Waling

Glad to see you read the poem. I enjoy all comments,
it helps to educate us about the writers. Thanks,
Barb.