Pablo Neruda

Some time ago I received a present.

Ten Poems to Change Your Life.  

It was sent to me by the writer of one of my favourite blogs,  

Jen of Country Weekend.

One of the poems was written by Pablo Neruda …

Ode to My Socks  

Maru Mori bought me

a pair of socks

which she knitted with her own

sheepherder  hands.

Two socks as soft as rabbits.

I slipped my feet into them

as if they were two cases

knitted with threads of twilight

and the pelt of sheep.

Outrageous socks,

my feet became two fish

made of wool,

two long sharks of ultramarine blue

crossed by one golden hair,

two gigantic blackbirds,

two cannons:

my feet were honoured in this way

by these heavenly socks.

They were so beautiful

that for the first time

my feet seemed to me unacceptable

like two decrepit  firemen,

firemen unworthy of that embroidered fire,

of these luminous socks.

Nevertheless,

I resisted the sharp temptation

to save them

as schoolboys keep fireflies,

as scholars collect sacred documents,

 resisted the wild impulse

to put them in a golden cage

and each day give them birdseed

and chunks of pink melon.

like explorers in the jungle

who hand over the rare green deer

to the roasting spit and eat it

with remorse.

I stretched out my feet

and pulled on

the magnificent socks

and then my shoes.

And the moral of my ode

Is this:

Beauty is twice beauty

and what is good is doubly good

When it’s a matter of two

woolen socks

in winter.

By Pablo Neruda

 
I love how Neruda makes me think and question.  
He often wrote about mundane, everyday items, 

 relishing them, revering them.

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet and politician.  Born in 1904, he was one of the renowned poets of the 20^th century – Columbian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez called him “the greatest poet of the 20^th century in any language”.

He wrote in many styles – 

surrealist poems, political declarations, erotic love poems, odes and epics.

He shared the World Peace Prize with Paul Robeson and Pable Picasso in 1950 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

I was first captivated by Neruda just over ten years ago.  

We were travelling to Peru, trekking to the ancient Inca city of Macchu Picchu.

I picked up a copy of ‘The Heights of Macchu Picchu’ by Pablo Neruda, 

inspired by his own journey into the high Andes.  
I was captivated.

 

Here are a couple of short extracts …

“Then up the ladder of the earth I climbed

Through the barbed jungle’s thickets

Until I reached you, Macchu Picchu.

Tall city of stepped stone,

Home at long last of whatever earth

Had never hidden in her sleeping clothes.

In you two lineage’s that had run parallel

Met where the cradle both of man and light

Rocked in a wind of thorns.

Mother of stone and sperm of condors

High reef of the human dawn …

… Look at me from the depths of the earth

Tiller of fields, weaver, reticent shepherd,

Groom of totemic guanacos,

Mason high on your treacherous scaffolding.

Iceman of Andean tears

Jeweler with crushed fingers,

Farmer anxious among his seedlings,

Potter wasted among his clays-

Bring to the cup of this new life

Your ancient burrowed sorrows.

Show me your blood and your furrow,

Say to me: here I was scourged

Because a gem was dull or because the earth

Failed to give up in time its tithe of corn or stone.

Point out to me the rock on which you stumbled,

The wood they used to crucify your body.

Strike the old flints

To kindle ancient lamps, light up the whips

Glued to your wounds throughout the centuries

And light the axes gleaming with your blood.

I come to speak for your dead mouths.”

As our band of four
(VJ, Mr VJ, Tinos the Dutch Girl and the Federico the Argentinian),
reached the ‘Sun Gate’ and looked down over the city of stone,
I felt Neruda's words and saw what he saw. 

Four brave explorers, 
we climbed the tall peak on the right - Huayna Picchu. 
I sat on the top ... I could not stand.
Dizzied with exhilaration and excitement.
I had conquered my mountain high.
I saw Incas and Sun Gods.

Thank you Jen.

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In the strangest of coincidences, 
I find that Jen has just posted a Neruda poem ...