Tuesday Poem - Pablo Neruda

Today being Valentine's Day in the North Western hemisphere (lingering still in the South?), I thought I'd post a favourite love poem - Ode to Things by Pablo Neruda. Having been a collector of odd and unusual things for much of my life, I'm in a process now of shedding and simplifying. This is in part about releasing the past and in part about freeing up space (of the internal and bricks-&-mortar kind). Neruda's poem might at first seem at odds with the process I'm describing, and yet. . . well, I imagine I'll always be passionate about tools and the objects we share our lives with. Birds' eggs, old builder's levels or a rusty ship's chain can bring me to my knees. There is a certain sacredness in these everyday objects, touched as they are by life, imbued as they are with it.

Neruda's Ode to Things seems to me to be more about the beauty of things per se than it is about ownership of them. I love this man - my Valentine's Day declaration?! - for the many ways in which he calls us to attention, exhorts us to appreciate the beauty in a pair of scissors, salt-shakers, a ship, the ocean. . . 

ODE TO THINGS

I have a crazy,

crazy love of things.

I like pliers,

and scissors. 

I love

cups, 

rings,

and bowls – 

not to speak, or course,

of hats.

I love

all things,

not just

the grandest, 

also

the 

infinite-

ly

small – 

thimbles, 

spurs,

plates,

and flower vases.

Oh yes,

the planet 

is sublime!

It’s full of pipes

weaving

hand-held

through tobacco smoke,

and keys

and salt shakers – 

everything,

I mean,

that is made 

by the hand of man, every little thing: 

shapely shoes,

and fabric,

and each new

bloodless birth

of gold,

eyeglasses

carpenter’s nails,

brushes,

clocks, compasses, 

coins, and the so-soft

softness of chairs.

Mankind has 

built 

oh so many

perfect

things!

Built them of wool

and of wood, 

of glass and

of rope: 

remarkable

tables, 

ships, and stairways.

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.

I pause in houses,

streets and 

elevators

touching things,

identifying objects

that I secretly covet; 

this one because it rings,

that one because 

it’s as soft

as the softness of a woman’s hip,

that one there for its deep-sea color,

and that one for its velvet feel.

O irrevocable 

river

of things: 

no one can say

that I loved

only

fish, 

or the plants of the jungle and the field, 

that I loved

only

those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.

It’s not true: 

many things conspired

to tell me the whole story.

Not only did they touch me,

or my hand touched them: 

they were

so close

that they were a part

of my being,

they were so alive with me

that they lived half my life

and will die half my death.

Pablo Neruda

Happy Valentine's Day, beautiful people. 

xo

For more Tuesday Poems, please visit the hub where this week's editor - Australian poet, Catherine Bateson (brand-new to TP - welcome, Catherine!) - features Canadian poet Lorna Crozier's 'Poem For A Hard Time.'