neruda.... mmm. some of his stuff just astounds and continues to astound.
went to the ocean yesterday and ended up at a bookshop reading poetry for some time...
here's one of my favorite finds of the evening:
Deber del Poeta (the poet's obligation)
To whoever is not listening to the sea
this friday morning , to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or dry prison cell,
to him I come, and without speaking or looking
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a long rumble of thunder adds itself
to the weight of the planet and the foam,
the groaning rivers of the ocean rise,
the star vibrates quickly into its corona
and the sea beats, dies, and goes on beating.
So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my consciousness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the sentence of the autumn,
I may be present with an errant wave,
I may move in and out of windows,
and hearing me,
eyes may lift themselves,
asking "How can I reach the sea?"
And I will pass to them, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing itself,
the gray cry of sea birds on the coast.
So, through me, freesom and the sea
will call in answer to the shrouded heart.
~Pablo Neruda, "On the Blue Shore of Silence", trans. by Alastair Reid <--- a fabulous edition, though I haven't yet had a concentrated look at the translation, I will soon. I don't know who my favorite translator is really... Anyway, another of my fav poems in there is Strangers on the Shore....
The ocean has ever been my home, and it is a JOY to be back!!!
