Pablo Neruda poems

Stationary Point

from The Book of Vagaries (1958)

I would know nothing, dream nothing:

Who will teach my non-being

How to be, without striving to be?

How can the water endure it?

What sky have the stones dreamed?

Immobile, until those migrations

Delay at their apogee

And fly on their arrows

Toward the cold archipelago.

Unmoved in its secretive life,

Like an underground city,

So the days may glide down

Like ungraspable dew:

Nothing fails, or shall perish,

Until we be born again,

Until all that lay plundered

Be restored with the tread

Of the springtime we buried?

The unceasingly stilled, as it lifts

itself out of non-being, even now,

To be a flowering bough.

Ode to an Artichoke
 
The artichoke
of delicate heart
erect
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
 
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a pot.
 
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:

it is green at the artichoke heart.

Clenched Soul

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.

Words

stationary point (′stā·shə′ner·ē ′pöint )(astronomy) A point at which a planet's apparent motion changes from direct to retrograde motion, or vice versa. (mathematics) A point on a curve at which the tangent is horizontal. For a function of several variables, a point at which all partial derivatives are 0.

ap·o·gee (ăp'ə-jē) n. The farthest or highest point; the apex: “The golden age of American sail, which began with the fast clipper ships in 1848, reached its apogee in the Gold Rush years” (Los Angeles Times).

ar·chi·pel·a·go (är'kə-pĕl'ə-gō') n., pl. -goes or -gos. A large group of islands: the Philippine archipelago; A sea, such as the Aegean, containing a large number of scattered islands.

cu·po·la (kyū'pə-lə) n. Architecture. A vaulted roof or ceiling; A small dome set on a circular or polygonal base or resting on pillars.

bel·fry (bĕl'frē) n., pl. -fries. A bell tower, especially one attached to a building; The part of a tower or steeple in which bells are hung.

sed·u·lous (sĕj'ə-ləs) adj. Persevering and constant in effort or application; assiduous.

dul·cet (dŭl'sĭt) adj. Pleasing to the ear; melodious; Having a soothing, agreeable quality; Archaic. Sweet to the taste.

bur·nish (bûr'nĭsh) tr.v., -nished, -nish·ing, -nish·es. To make smooth or glossy by or as if by rubbing; polish. To rub with a tool that serves especially to smooth or polish.

hop·per (hŏp'ər) n. A usually funnel-shaped container in which materials, such as grain or coal, are stored in readiness for dispensation.

def·i·lade (dĕf'ə-lād', -läd') tr.v., -lad·ed, -lad·ing, -lades. To arrange (fortifications) in such a way as to give protection from enfilading and other fire.

con·clave (kŏn'klāv', kŏng'-) n. A secret or confidential meeting.

stave (stāv) n. A narrow strip of wood forming part of the sides of a barrel, tub, or similar structure.

candle—To test by allowing the light of a candle to shine through.

mil·len·ni·um (mə-lĕn'ē-əm) n., pl. -len·ni·a (-lĕn'ē-ə) or -len·ni·ums. A span of one thousand years; A thousand-year period of holiness mentioned in Revelation 20, during which Jesus and his faithful followers are to rule on earth; A hoped-for period of joy, serenity, prosperity, and justice; A thousandth anniversary.

hal·cy·on (hăl'sē-ən) n. A kingfisher, especially one of the genus Halcyon; A fabled bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was supposed to have had the power to calm the wind and the waves while it nested on the sea during the winter solstice. adj. Calm and peaceful; tranquil; Prosperous; golden: halcyon years.