Anyway, I seem to become fonder and fonder of poetry in general and Neruda's in particular as I get older. I love the places - both internal and external - that poetry takes me, the way it creates a pace for itself, the way it can meander across a page and pull the reader in or can be stark against a page and demand attention. I'm not one to opt for fewer words when more is a choice, but there's something about thinking in poetry that makes me think differently.
To the Foot From Its Child
by Pablo Neruda, translated by Jodey Bateman
And it wants to be a butterfly or an apple
But then the rocks and pieces of glass,
the streets, the stairways
and the roads of hard earth
keep teaching the foot that it can't fly,
that it can't be a round fruit on a branch.
Then the child's foot
was defeated, it fell
in battle,
it was a prisoner,
condemned to life in a shoe.
Little by little without light
it got acquainted with the world in its own way
without knowing the other imprisoned foot
exploring life like a blind man.
Those smooth toe nails
of quartz in a bunch,
got harder, they changed into
an opaque substance, into hard horn
and the child's little petals
were crushed, lost their balance,
took the form of a reptile without eyes,
with triangular heads like a worm's.
And they had callused over,
they were covered
with tiny lava fields of death,
a hardening unasked for.
But this blind thing kept going
without surrender, without stopping
hour after hour.
One foot after another,
now as a man,
or a woman,
above,
below,
through the fields, the mines,
the stores, the government bureaus,
backward,
outside, inside,
forward,
this foot worked with its shoes,
it hardly had time
to be naked in love or in sleep
one foot walked, both feet walked
until the whole man stopped.
And then it went down
into the earth and didn't know anything
because there everything was dark,
it didn't know it was no longer a foot
or if they buried it so it could fly
or so it could
be an apple.
One of the coolest compliments I've ever gotten came from a friend who is a wonderful and wonderfully prolific poet who said I should write poetry because I write poetically. Here is what is probably my favorite of her poems:
The Blessing
By: Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Let your days ahead be sprinkled with laughter and with laughter, peace.
May all you touch spring forth with freshness.
Find time to giggle and dance and jump, and watch the setting of the sun.
When you wake up, wonder out loud about the sun’s rays, about the darkening
of the morning, about the fog over the hills, about your babies down the hall,
about the neighbor and her dog. Wonder at the stars; wonder and wonder why
you are so blessed and why is it you are among those of the earth who have
more than their allotted air for breathing.
Wonder why the cat meows and why the dog wags its tail.
Wonder and wonder why dew falls at night and about the squirrel’s fleeting stare.
Make laughter come alive in your home.
And when you touch someone, let that touch be real, and I mean, real, my friend.
Walk gently on soft ground, and when you walk on a bare rock, step hard, this life is precious.
May your year follow only through a clear path, and please, when you walk, let it be with God, my love, let it be with God.
And a new favorite. The person who I first heard read "Recuerdo" gave it a history that ties it so close to Kalamazoo that ties it to Kalamazoo, and that makes it even more precious to me. Recuerdo in Spanish is the first person of recordar, to remember. Tom, who I first heard read this, pointed out that recuerdo is also a noun. Then it's a remembrance. I'll have to find somebody to ask if it's the same as memoria or if there's a difference. I don't know why it makes me cry when I read it out loud; maybe only because I find it so beautiful and wonderful and wonder-filled.
Edna St.Vincent Millay (1892-1951)
Recuerdo
WE were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
Millay was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923.
The power of poetry astounds me. I'm totally there's no way I could have survived high school without Paul Simon's. It still fills and sustains me now.
