Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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.' 





21 comments:

  1. One of my faves. Always a joy to read!

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  2. Thanks, Claire. Very good choice for letting go process.
    L, Mxo

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  3. Fabulous choice, Claire!

    I love:

    " ... fans upon
    whose feathers
    love has scattered
    its blossoms ..."

    It reminds me, in sentiment of Rupert Brooks' "The Graet Lover" (another long time favourite) although the poems are very different in style/execution.

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  4. I love things too. This is a wonderful poem. I feel justified now in keeping so many 'things.'

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  5. Thank you for a Valentine treasure. A friend of very long duration, to whom I knew not what words to send this day, will receive this. Oh, things. xo

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  6. Claire, my partner is an object designer and so this poem hits so close to home for me. I am constantly being reminded of the thingness of things. It reminds me very much of Elizabeth Bishop's evocation, 'lose something every day' at times. Thanks!

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  7. Karl Marx was right all along: 'That Neruda was one incurable fetishist'. He said that somewhere in The Eighteenth Brumaire ....

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  8. There's such a joyfulness in this poem

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  9. T.Clear, Sparrow, Helen, Kass - happy to know you love this poem, too. That Neruda! Hard to walk past without a gasp.

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  10. Kass - it seems to me life's a series of gathering up and letting go experiences? The things we live with can also be containers for stories, would you agree (in the way that a photograph prompts memories)? I've been missing your blog - will you be back in your writing seat soon? L, C

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  11. Dear Marylinn - gifts circulated can be the very best kind? Enjoy with love, Claire xo

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  12. PC - hello! I have to agree - Mr. Neruda is way cool ; )

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  13. Hi Elizabeth - the 'thingness of things' is a wonderful way to put it! Your partner might enjoy having Neruda's poem read out loud to him?

    Here's a link to a commemorative post for Elizabeth Bishop (the poem you mention is quoted there, too) -

    http://documentaryarts.blogspot.com/2011/02/elizabeth.html

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  14. John - that he was. But oh, how easily we forgive him!

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  15. Catherine - joy emanates from beginning to end. I can't not see/read/feel/hear it as a Love Poem. If I were that pair of scissors or that shapely shoe, I'd be all a-quiver ; )

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  16. lovely stuff - didn't know this one so thanks

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  17. Claire, I love this joyful declaration of our attachment to life's ephemera. Always loved Neruda, to pick a favorite would be to paste the whole.

    Collecting begun early; shells and pebbles and never stopped. Thank you:)

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  18. I love things too. This is a wonderful poem. I feel justified now in keeping so many 'things.' Thanks For Sharing .

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  19. What a write!! Very informative also easy to understand. Looking for more such posts!! Do you have a myspace? I recommended it on digg. The only thing that it’s missing is a bit of new design. Anyway thank you for this blog.

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