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.' 

Brother

This is a picture of my brother Alan and I sitting on the top step of my maternal grandparent's swimming pool, c. 1963. When we were little, he and I went everywhere, did everything together; I adored him.

Alan died twenty-seven years ago today. I was at Art School in London when the phone call came. My first words to my father when I picked up the receiver in old Ms. Turner's bedroom were "Dad. It's Alan, isn't it?" For the two weeks preceding his death, I was dogged by a sense of unease, of premonitory knowing; I slept turbulently and dreamed nightly of fires and fireplaces. The day before I'd left Johannesburg for the UK, I'd spent a couple of hours with Alan in his furniture-renovation workshop; I'd taken my camera along with me but he didn't want to be photographed, so I took a series of images of the windows and skylights in his space instead. In the days before he died, I felt a burning need to place these photographs up on the wall in the little alcove next to my bed; each morning and before turning my light out at night, I would kiss the middle and index fingers on my right hand, then transfer the kiss to each of these images in turn. In the printmaking studio at Art School, I began work on a lithograph of one of Alan's skylights. I had a strange and strong sense of him being 'around' - so much so that one late afternoon, certain I'd seen him on the other side of The King's Road, I waved my arms about and called out his name before weaving myself through the peak hour traffic to reach him. Of course, it was not Alan I had seen but a young man surprised by a stranger's impulse to lay her hand on his shoulder.

*

BROTHER

I

You warmed my blood

for years I kept an eye 

on you. Now I tell myself

Death at least is

an honest continent

a simple compost

of history and bones. 

II

Chisel an altar 

out of mourning.

When stone thaws 

and herons dream

unbind your feet 

and sign yourself.  

CB 2006

Ali-B  - we remember. 

SHORT FILMS on a TALL WALL

To all who live within arms reach of Dunedin - you're invited to come along to this hi-tech version of good old-fashioned drive-in cinema. Very short notice - it's happening tonight and promises to be fun! xo

PS. Two of my short films - DRIFT (5 mins) 
and HIDDEN DEPTHS - Poetry for Science (12 mins) - will be screened. 

Soak

Everything is a miracle.

It 

is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one's bath like a lump of sugar - Pablo Picasso

Prue Leith penned the following short piece about baths before the rest of us could! Enjoy. . .   

"Finding a pleasure that is reliable, available all year round, cheap, doesn't deplete the world's resources, causes no harm or pain to animals or humans, and won't offend anyone at all is not easy. However, I confidently nominate a nice hot bath. And before someone tells me that it costs 50p to fill a bath and it is a shocking waste of water, can I please plead that I don't do it very often and I make up for it in between with very quick showers, which I hate. . . "

". . . Lying in a bath for hours seems to be a peculiarly female thing. Some women take it further than I do: expensive essential oils, aromatherapy, mini-bottles, candles all around, even rose petals in the water. Like some kind of sacred rite. 

But few men lie in the bath. Which is why baths are mostly so badly designed. All bath designers seem to be men, and I wonder how many of them test them for comfort? I've become something of an expert since I'm trying to find a bath for my barn conversion which one day will be, I hope, my retirement home. There are almost no baths with good wide edges for the gin and tonic, novel, magazine or radio, never mind such basics as soap, loofah, bubble bath and nailbrush. If you buy one of those pretty free-standing baths you will have to put a table next to it. Which you will struggle to reach over the ridiculously high sides of the bath. 

I admit my search is complicated by the fact that I want a shallowish bath so that when my legs and arms hardly work at all I will still be able to get out of it. All the free-standing, good-looking baths are so deep I can barely get out of them now. And most of then, because of their depth, have steeply sloping ends so that lying down is impossible. I want a gentle incline so I can lie back, and low enough sides so I can rest my elbows on the rim with my hands comfortably holding a book. 

I want to be able to reach the taps without sitting up so I can keep the water topped up (yes I know, more wicked waste), and I'd like the bath to be made of some sort of material that keeps the water insulated and hot. 

Oh, and the bathroom should have a view. My present one has reaches of changing sky and the branches of waving sequoias with pigeons on the tippy tops posing like angels on a Christmas tree. . . " 

Prue Leith

from A Nice Hot Bath - pg 49, Simple Pleasures - Little Things That Make Life Worth Living 

How do you feel about baths and bathing? Are you able to reach your taps with your toes? Is bathing about ritual for you - or function? Or both? Do you light candles, drink orange cordial, whiskey or tea in your bath? Does your bath's shape 'do it' for you? If not, what would you change?

Happily, my idea of a perfect bath is the ancient (b. 1880) claw-footed cast-iron one I have right now; the only thing I'd like to add some day soon, is a bird bath on the other side of the window. . . 

Edgar Degas - Woman in the bathtub

Tuesday Poem - The woman who walks backwards by Diane Brown

THE WOMAN WHO WALKS BACKWARDS

In my neighbourhood of bankers’ mansions

converted into halfway houses, and broken

windowed student flats, I’ve come to expect

odd subjects, the man who cries out piercingly 

at dawn, the speedy walker with Tourettes, 

the one who stalks the footpath for his next 

cigarette, and now the woman who walks 

backwards down the 200 steps, hoping 

to meet herself going forwards; a way 

to delay getting old, I’m told, but how 

she risks splinters, bare hands gripping 

the rail for dear life.

Diane Brown

I first read this poem by Diane Brown several months ago when it appeared in the New Zealand Book Council newsletter. 


Two days ago, I was standing with Diane outside her house; we were talking in the rain (as one does) at the top of the steps that feature in this poem. They were just a foot or two away from where we were standing - her long shortcut down the hill to work each day. She mentioned that her knees have been giving her gyp lately, so it's not unusual for her to have to make her descent backwards. . . 

Thanks for sharing your image-rich poem with us, Diane.

Diane Brown is a poet, novelist and memoirist, and the Creative Writing Co-ordinator at Aoraki Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her publications include two collections of poetry (Before The Divorce We Go To Disneyland, Tandem 1997—winner of the NZSA Best First Book of Poetry at the Montana Book Awards 1997; Learning to Lie Together, Godwit 2004), two novels (If The Tongue Fits, Tandem 1999; Eight Stages of Grace, Random 2002—a verse novel which was a finalist in the Montana Book Awards 2003), a travel memoir (Liars and Lovers, Random 2004) and a prose/poetic travel memoir, Here Comes Another Vital Moment, Godwit 2006. She is currently completing a novel, Hooked.

*

Pamela Gordon is this week's Tuesday Poem guest editor. She is the niece and executor of one of New Zealand's best known - and best loved - writers, Janet Frame. Pamela is also a poet, and a dedicated supporter of our Tuesday poetry initiative. She's chosen to post Poets by Janet this week. 

  

Central

I've been up in Wanaka at the opening of Sculpture in Central Otago - 36 artworks in dialogue with earth and sky in the spectacular Rippon vineyard. Have a look-see. . . 

details from Thunderhead by Gary Baynes

2400 x 1200 x 350MM - Corten steel    

(one of four 'contained' ceramic forms titled Things by Cheryl Lucas) 

(My name for this piece. . . Cloud Spill)

Tall Poppies (details x 2) - Jane Downes 2011 

800 x 1200 x 1200MM - Powder-coated steel

Autumn Perception - Russell Beck 2011 

1350 x 1750 x 315MM - Galvanized mild steel

I spent a long while lying on the grass inside this transparent cathedral -

Cathedra Domine - Rosie Petterson 2006

5000 x 8000 x 6000MM - steel rod & tube

A woman I met whilst walking the 1.5km trail told me her thirty-six-year-old daughter was in need of a man in her life. She decided to buy her daughter one of these well-dressed Lego fellows 'to get by with in the meantime'. . .

Fit the Mould - Hamish Jones 2010
920 x 490 x 260MM - Fibreglass, acrylic paint & resin

Vineyard hilltop overlooking Lake Wanaka.

When I arrived home, the simple pleasure of finding a dozen or so ripe cherry tomatoes in my glasshouse. . . 

Hungry Tree

Tuesday Poem - fragments from F-/Wh Fugue

Camelot River, Bradshaw Sound, Western Fiordland

. . . When dawn comes and the ruru* 

return, we will cast our bodies

on your banks and

with spines to the ground

and eyes wide open, wonder

at the tenacity of moss, 

the complex miracle of breathing. . . 

CB 2008 

Sketch book page for F-/Wh- Fugue** (4th stanza)

(Text - CB; composition for piano, bassoon, solo alto and bass chorus - Gillian Whitehead)  

These fragments come from a longer text written in response to Camelot River, an ancient black waterway in Western Fiordland, one of New Zealand's most magnificent and inaccessible areas of primordial forest and uninhabited coastline. The Sounds are referred to by many as the 'birthplace of waterfalls'. I lost - and found - my heart there during a creative residency in 2008. One of the artists on board the conservation yacht was composer Gillian Whitehead. We returned to Dunedin much affected by our experience; our F-/Wh- Fugue is one of several collaborative projects that came out of that time. 

It opens like this - 

Your dark waters ask much of us, Camelot -

A day's encounter leads to nights of melancholy dreams,

Your fertile banks are a birthing place

for best and worst intentions - black mountains' glare

and forest's gaze; a poetry of pauses.

Old river, your dark waters ask much of us. . . 

*

*ruru - New Zealand's only surviving native owl, known for its haunting, melancholy call.

** In the Maori language, the letters Wh sound as an F does in English; the chorus in this piece called on Wh- and F- sounds for their cultural, linguistic and percussive effect (amongst many others, the bass chorus featured the words fecund forest fragile fauna falter fathom fall whanga wheku whanau whenua whetu. . . The intention was to evoke a sense of ancestral voices.) 

Sample page of Gillian's score

. . .  and a wee snippet of the fugue's first rehearsal (sans instruments) with a drawing in the making. . .

PS. I've been a flat fish - a flounder - lately. . . If today's post comes across as a bit of a deep sea dive (or an archeological dig?), that'll be because I've spent the last however many hours doing something I've wanted to do since November (flotilla time); i.e sift through old drawings, fossick through studio drawers; rummage through old folders of poetry. . . I've dug through computer archives, watched old work-related video clips, revisited past projects and past times. . . had a bit of reconnection time. I'd begun to wonder if the creative me had packed up and gone. It feels like a century since I spent a good stretch of unbroken time in my studio - or worked quietly at my writing desk. So, it was enormously helpful to look over where I've been and to see again the things that have fired me in years past; it was helpful to be reminded that I am a passionate person, that I do still have plenty of ideas to work with and there is a firm foundation beneath me even though the ground has felt shaky for an uncomfortably looooong time. 

I have yet to find traction in the studio this year - and must. There are two conferences coming up and a solo show seven months away, so there are several big things to sink teeth into. Today's rustling (my grandfather's term for 'purposeful rummaging') was really, really helpful.  One day soon, I'm sure I'll  return to the blogosphere with writing tongue and tail wagging. I read you all with appreciation each morning but have been at a complete loss for words. 


I've wondered about leaving a 'personal pebble' -  )O( - a sign that says 'I've been here', 'hello', 'yes', 'thank you', 'soon-soon'. . . when words prove elusive? Perhaps each of us could come up with a 'silent signature' for such times?  

To enjoy Gillian Whitehead's piano piece Arapatiki (performed by Stephen de Pledge), click here. Of this piece, Gillian says "Arapatiki, which translates as 'the way of the flounder', is the name given to the sand flats in the Otago Harbour in front of my house. Material suggesting the inexorable ebbing and flowing of the tide and the call of the korimako (bellbird) are the basic ideas propelling the piece."

*

For today's Tuesday Poems, please click here.