P O E T I C --- P A I N T I N G S


"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen" -- da Vinci

To write poetry, you must read and, read some more -- Me





Mar 4, 2009

A Lemon by Pablo Neruda


Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)





Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

Pablo Neruda




Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) born in Chile. His real name was Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. His poems have been translated into English. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. You can tell Mr. Neruda was a lover. His poems are of love, love, love. Read More




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4 comments:

Katia Shtefan said...

What a beautiful tribute to a unique fruit! However, this translation seems a bit too complex. A good anthology of English translations is "The Essential Neruda." It doesn't have this poem, but it has all of Neruda's most famous works.

If you really like Neruda, check out Red Poppy at www.redpoppy.net. It's a non-profit set up to create a documentary about Neruda, publish his biography, and translate his works into English. To see our blog about Nerudá's literary activism, click on "Journal."

djWhite said...

Thanks so much for visiting and for the information on Pablo Neruda.

A said...

Nice one...

djWhite said...

Glad you enjoyed.