Tag Archives: Pablo Neruda

The cheese of vegetables!

food and cooking, poetry, ,

This poem made me laugh at myself. I had never seen it until after the last of my many giddy visits to the apple ranch this fall, but its music plays such a familiar tune, that it presents the images and message as a makebelieve memory of a jolly uncle on whose knee I once sat, as we peeled apples together and sang of Johnny Appleseed, perhaps, and of a world united by the glory of apples.

ODE TO THE APPLE

Here’s to you, Apple,
I want to
celebrate you
by filling my mouth
with your name,
by eating you.

You are always
more refreshing than anything
or anybody,
always
newly fallen
from Paradise:
simple
and pure
rouged cheek
of dawn!

How difficult
the fruits of the Earth
are when compared to you:
grapes in their cells,
gloomy
mangos,
bony plums, figs
in their underwater world.
You are pure pomade,
fragrant bread,
the cheese
of vegetables!
When we bite into
your round innocence,
for an instant, we also return
to the fresh moment of a living thing’s creation,
and in essence, we contain a chunk of apple.

I crave
your absolute
abundance, your family
multiplied.
I want a city,
a republic,
the Mississippi river rolling
with apples,
and along its banks,
I want to see
the population
of the entire world,
united, reunited,
enjoying the simplest act on Earth:
eating an apple.

-Pablo Neruda

Be more quiet.

poetry, quotes,

“Prayer is food for the soul. Do not starve the soul, it is better to let the body go hungry. Do not judge anyone, forgive everyone. Consider yourself worse than everyone in the world and you will be saved. As much as possible, be more quiet.”  –St. Joseph of Optina

4e3cf-lake01canoe

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

–Pablo Neruda, from Extravagaria