Pablo Neruda

Life, Oblique

May 15, 2020 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “Georgetown,” by Kevin Dooley. Found the original at Flickr, and use it here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!).]

From whiskey river:

Road Warriors
My traveling clothes light up the noon.
I’ve been on my way for a long time
back to the past,
That irreconcilable city.
Everyone wants to join me, it seems, and I let them.
Roadside flowers drive me to distraction,
dragonflies
Hover like lapus lazuli, there, just out of reach.
Narrow road, wide road, all of us on it, unhappy,
Unsettled, seven yards short of immortality
And a yard short of not long to live.
Better to sit down in the tall grass
and watch the clouds,
To lift our faces up to the sky,
Considering—for most of us—our lives have been a constant mistake.

(Charles Wright [source])

…and:

If each day falls
inside each night,
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.
We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.

(Pablo Neruda [source])

…and:

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.
Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.
Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

(Dan Albergotti [source])

…and:

Things happen to a person; that is, life deals you a set of cards and you play them as you are able. If I do my best I can and make no trouble for my neighbors, then surely I cannot be blamed either for my existence or my government. There are forces that buffet us through life that no mere individual can withstand. Better to stick to my books and musings about literature and leave the government to those who know best. That was certainly what I believed for years, but this evening I had begun to wonder, foolishly perhaps, if it wasn’t that sort of thinking which had helped bring about this current state of affairs.

(Stephen Dobyns [source])

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A Luxurious Bite of the Present

October 5, 2018 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “Please Do Not Obstruct (Ludlow, UK),” by John E. Simpson (shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH).]

From whiskey river (italicized lines):

Ode to the Present

This
present moment,
smooth
as a wooden slab,
this
immaculate hour,
this day
pure
as a new cup
from the past—
no spider web
exists—
with our fingers,
we caress
the present; we cut it
according to our magnitude
we guide
the unfolding of its blossoms.
It is living,
alive—
it contains
nothing
from the unrepairable past,
from the lost past,
it is our
infant,
growing at
this very moment, adorned with
sand, eating from
our hands.
Grab it.
Don’t let it slip away.
Don’t lose it in dreams
or words.
Clutch it.
Tie it,
and order it
to obey you.
Make it a road,
a bell,
a machine,
a kiss, a book,
a caress.
Take a saw to its delicious
wooden
perfume.
And make a chair;
braid its
back;
test it.
Or then, build
a staircase! Yes, a
staircase.
Climb
into
the present,
step
by step,
press your feet
onto the resinous wood
of this moment,
going up,
going up,
not very high,
just so
you repair
the leaky roof.
Don’t go all the way to heaven.
Reach
for apples,
not the clouds.
Let them
fluff through the sky,
skimming passage,
into the past. You
are
your present,
your own apple.
Pick it from
your tree.
Raise it
in your hand.
It’s gleaming,
rich with stars.
Claim it.
Take a luxurious bite
out of the present,
and whistle along the road
of your destiny.

(Pablo Neruda [source])

…and:

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. If you can bend space you can bend time also, and if you knew enough and could move faster than light you could travel backwards in time and exist in two places at once.

It was my brother Stephen who told me that, when he wore his raveling maroon sweater to study in and spent a lot of time standing on his head so that the blood would run down into his brain and nourish it. I didn’t understand what he meant, but maybe he didn’t explain it very well. He was already moving away from the imprecision of words.

But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another. You don’t look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away.

(Margaret Atwood [source])

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Une Moment

January 16, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika” (full title: Negerknaben in der Brandung des Tahganyikasees, or “Boys in the Surf at Lake Tanganyika”) by Martin Munkácsi (ca. 1930). This picture crystallized for photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson all the elements of what became famous as his insistence that photography capture a “decisive moment.” See Cartier-Bresson’s quote about it, below.]

From whiskey river:

There are such moments in life: one unexpectedly discovers that perfection exists, that it, too, is a tiny sphere traveling in time, empty, transparent, luminous, and which sometimes (rarely) comes in our direction and encircles us for a few brief moments before traveling on to other parts and other people.

(José Saramago [source])

…and:

Horses

From the window I saw the horses.

I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
was without light, the sky without sky.

The air white like wet bread.

And from my window a vacant arena,
bitten by the teeth of winter.

Suddenly led by a man,
ten horses stepped out into the mist.

Hardly had they surged forth, like flame,
than to my eyes they filled the whole world,
empty till then. Perfect, ablaze,
they were like ten gods with pure white hoofs,
with manes like a dream of salt.

Their rumps were worlds and oranges.

Their color was honey, amber, fire.

Their necks were towers
cut from the stone of pride,
and behind their transparent eyes
energy raged, like a prisoner.

And there, in the silence, in the middle
of the day, of the dark, slovenly winter,
the intense horses were the blood
and rhythm, the animating treasure of life.

I looked. I looked and was reborn: without knowing it,
there, was the fountain, the dance of gold, the sky,
the fire that revived in beauty.

I have forgotten that dark Berlin winter.

I will not forget the light of the horses.

(Pablo Neruda [source])

…and:

But being is making; not only large things, a family, a book, a business; but the shape we give this afternoon, a conversation between friends, a meal.

(Frank Bidart [source])

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Waypoints

March 8, 2013 by John 4 Comments

[Image: possibly the oldest surviving map of the world. Mesopotamia/Babylon, about 700-500 BCE. Click to enlarge; see the note at the foot of this post for more information.]

From whiskey river:

In general, lives seem to veer abruptly from one thing to another, to jostle and bump, to squirm. A person heads in one direction, turns sharply in mid-course, stalls, drifts, starts up again. Nothing is ever known, and inevitably we come to a place quite different from the one we set out for.

(Paul Auster [source])

…and (italicized portion):

The spiritual life — or the writing life — depends above all on fidelity to objects.

I wrote that sentence and looked out the window. It has rained for three days and in today’s sun the late roses strain, soggy as wet tissue, toward light coming just in time. Fidelity, I was saying, to objects…

Whatever your eye falls on — for it will fall on what you love — will lead you to the questions of your life, the questions that are incumbent upon you to answer, because that is how the mind works in concert with the eye. The things of this world draw us where we need to go.

It doesn’t matter how unprepossessing the world we look at, though it may seem to the lust of the eye that blue sky and late roses are more amusing to look at than dead winter growth. This mistake I make over and over.

(Mary Rose O’Reilley [source])

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Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, and Whether to Ask (or Not)

May 11, 2012 by John 2 Comments

[Image: Many Questions No Answers, by Norwegian artist Trine Meyer Vogsland
(acrylic on watercolor paper; 24x32cm)]

From whiskey river:

LXXII

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?

How do the seasons know
they must change their shirt?

Why so slowly in winter
and later with such a rapid shudder?

And how do the roots know
they must climb toward the light?

And then greet the air
with so many flowers and colors?

Is it always the same spring
who revives her role?

(Pablo Neruda [source])

…and:

Self-inquiry is simple. It does not require you to do anything, change anything, think anything, or understand anything. It only asks you to pay careful attention to what is real.

I have two sons. When they were about four, they both went through a phase of having nightmares. I would go into the room and switch on the light. Two small eyes blinked at me from the corner.

“What’s the problem?” I’d ask.

“Daddy, there’s a monster in the room,” a timid voice would reply. Now, I had more than one choice of how to respond. I could tell my frightened boy that it was not true, there was no monster, go back to sleep. That response is the equivalent of reading a book that says, “We’re all one, there is no problem, just be with what is.” Fine ideas, but they don’t help much. I could also have offered to feed the monster cookies, talk with the monster, negotiate. That approach is like some kinds of psychotherapy. Treat the problem as real, then fix it on its own terms. But the only real solution I ever found was to have a good look. Under the bed, in the closet, behind the curtains, we undertook an exhaustive search.

Eventually my sons would let out a deep sigh, smile at me, and fall back to sleep. The problem was not solved but dissolved. It was never real in the first place, but it took investigation to make that a reality.

(Arjuna Ardagh [source])

…and:

XIV

And what did the rubies say
standing before the juice of pomegranates?

Why doesn’t Thursday talk itself
into coming after Friday?

Who shouted with glee
when the color blue was born?

Why does the earth grieve
when the violets appear?

(Pablo Neruda [source])

…and:

The best way to find out things… is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun; bang it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient, you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun.

(Elspeth Huxley [source])

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Walking Around Empty

September 2, 2011 by John 10 Comments

[Image: still from Man Made Monster (1941).]

From whiskey river:

I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,
vacillating, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
downward, in the soaked guts of the earth,
absorbing and thinking, eating each day.

(Pablo Neruda, from “Walking Around” [source])

…and:

You’ve heard “Don’t believe everything you read.” Here are some useful spinoffs: Don’t believe everything you think. Don’t believe everything you tell yourself. And most especially, don’t believe everything you feel.

(Rev. O. M. Bastet [source unknown])

…and:

As long as we have practiced neither concentration nor mindfulness, the ego takes itself for granted and remains its usual normal size, as big as the people around one will allow.

(Ayya Khema [source])

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Step by Step, and an Ounce at a Time

July 29, 2011 by John 3 Comments

[Image: Beast of Burden, a sculpture by Sarah Perry. For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river:

Burlap Sack

A person is full of sorrow
the way a burlap sack is full of stones or sand.
We say, “Hand me the sack,”
but we get the weight.
Heavier if left out in the rain.
To think that the stones or sand are the self is an error.
To think that grief is the self is an error.
Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags,
being careful between the trees to leave extra room.
The mule is not the load of ropes and nails and axes.
The self is not the miner nor builder nor driver.
What would it be to take the bride
and leave behind the heavy dowry?
To let the thick ribbed mule browse in tall grasses,
its long ears waggling like the tails of two happy dogs?

(Jane Hirshfield [source])

…and:

I think there is choice possible at any moment to us, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.

(Muriel Rukeyser)

…and:

I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses — that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.

(Pablo Neruda)

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Do We Ever Really Get It?

July 15, 2011 by John 14 Comments

[Image: looking up into the Ring Around a Tree playspace/bus shelter in Fuji, Japan. Click to enlarge; see the note at the foot of this post for more information.]

From whiskey river:

I always gained something from making myself better,
better than I am, better than I was,
that most subtle citation:
to recover some lost petal
of the sadness I inherited:
to search once more for the light that sings
inside of me, the unwavering light.

(Pablo Neruda)

…and:

We must know that it is not enough just to see what the Mind is, we must put into practice all that makes it up in our daily life. We may talk about it glibly, we may write books to explain it, but that is far from being enough. However much we may talk about water and describe it quite intelligently, that does not make it real water. So with fire. Mere talking of it will not make the mouth burn. To know what they are means to experience them in actual concreteness. A book on cooking will not cure our hunger. To feel satisfied we must have actual food. So long as we do not go beyond mere talking, we are not true knowers.

(Takuan Soho)

…and:

If you were to put aside what you know because of what other people told you, how much of what you know do you truly know for yourself?

(John Tarrant)

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Think You Know What’s Coming?

August 6, 2010 by John 8 Comments

From whiskey river:

If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next — if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions — you’d be doomed. You’d be as ruined as God. You’d be a stone. You’d never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You’d never love anyone, ever again. You’d never dare to.

(Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin [source])

…and, from the whiskey river archives (the commonplace book):

How Much Happens in a Day

In the course of a day we shall meet one another.

But, in one day, things spring to life —
they sell grapes in the street,
tomatoes change their skin,
the young girl you wanted
never came back to the office.

They changed the postman suddenly.
The letters now are not the same.
A few golden leaves and it’s different;
this tree is now well off.

Who would have said that the earth
with its ancient skin would change so much?
It has more volcanoes than yesterday,
the sky has brand-new clouds,
the rivers are flowing differently.
Besides, so much has come into being!
I have inaugurated hundreds
of highways and buildings,
delicate, clean bridges
like ships or violins.

And so, when I greet you
and kiss your flowering mouth,
our kisses are other kisses,
our mouths are other mouths.

Joy, my love, joy in all things,
in what falls and what flourishes.

Joy in today and yesterday,
the day before and tomorrow.

Joy in bread and stone,
joy in fire and rain.

In what changes, is born, grows,
consumes itself, and becomes a kiss again.

Joy in the air we have,
and in what we have of earth.

When our life dries up,
only the roots remain to us,
and the wind is cold like hate.

Then let us change our skin,
our nails, our blood, our gazing;
and you kiss me and I go out
to sell light on the roads.

Joy in the night and the day,
and the four stations of the soul.

(Pablo Neruda; translation by Alastair Reid [source])

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