Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
1
If You Forget Me. 2
Tie Your Heart at Night to Mine. 3
Poetry Arrived. 4
Ode To Ironing. 5
Ode To Bird Watching. 5
Ode To The Book. 7
Ode to the Lemon. 9
I'll Explain some Things. 10
Ode To Clothing. 12
Ode To Olive Oil 14
Statues. 15
Opium in the East 17
Triangles. 17
Ode To Broken Things. 18
Beasts. 19
If You Forget Me
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
Poetry Arrived
Ode To Ironing
Poetry is white
it comes dripping out of the water
it gets wrinkled and piles up
We have to stretch out the skin of this planet
We have to iron the sea in its whiteness
The hands go on and on
and so things are made
the hands make the world every day
fire unites with steel
linen, canvas and calico come back
from combat in the laundry
and from the light a dove is born
purity comes back from the soap suds.
Now
Let's look for birds!
The tall iron branches
in the forest,
The dense
fertility on the ground.
The world
is wet.
A dewdrop or raindrop
shines,
a diminutive star
among the leaves.
The morning time
mother earth
is cool.
The air
is like a river
which shakes
the silence.
It smells of rosemary,
of space
and roots.
Overhead,
a crazy song.
It's a bird.
How
out of its throat
smaller than a finger
can there fall the waters
of its song?
Luminous ease!
Invisible
power
torrent
of music
in the leaves.
Sacred conversations!
Clean and fresh washed
is this
day resounding
like a green dulcimer.
I bury
my shoes
in the mud,
jump over rivulets.
A thorn
bites me and a gust
of air like a crystal
wave
splits up inside my chest.
Where
are the birds?
Maybe it was
that
rustling in the foliage
or that fleeting pellet
of brown velvet
or that displaced
perfume? That
leaf that let loose cinnamon smell
- was that a bird? That dust
from an irritated magnolia
or that fruit
which fell with a thump -
was that a flight?
Oh, invisible little
critters
birds of the devil
with their ringing
with their useless feathers.
I only want
to caress them,
to see them resplendent.
I don't want
to see under glass
the embalmed lightning.
I want to see them living.
I want to touch their gloves
of real hide,
which they never forget in
the branches
and to converse with
them
sitting on my shoulders
although they may leave
me like certain statues
undeservedly whitewashed.
Impossible.
You can't touch them.
You can hear them
like a heavenly
rustle or movement.
They converse
with precision.
They repeat
their observations.
They brag
of how much they do.
They comment
on everything that exists.
They learn
certain sciences
like hydrography.
and by a sure science
they know
where there are harvests
of grain.
Tender merchandise!
Our shores filled up with it,
The markets
Of light, of gold
From a tree,
And we open up
The two halves
Of a miracle,
Congealed acid
Which ran
From the hemispheres
Of a star
And the most profound liquor
In nature,
Unchanging, alive,
Indestructible,
Born from the freshness
Of the lemon,
From its fragrant house,
From its acid, secret symmetry.
Generals
Traitors
Look at my dead home
Look at broken Spain –
But from each dead house
Burning metal shoots out
Instead of flowers.
From every shell-hole in Spain
Spain will rise.
From every dead child a rifle with
Eyes will rise.
From every crime bullets will be born
Which will one day find a place
In your hearts.
Come
See the blood along the streets
Come see
The blood along the streets
Come see the blood
Along the Streets!
(Translator’s note: This poem is about the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939.
Neruda was working in the Chilean Embassy in Spain when the civil war began. In 1936
the Popular Front government, which included Communists, was elected in Spain. All but
six officers in the army refused to serve under the Popular Front. With the support of the
Catholic Church four Spanish generals led an uprising against the Popular Front. Many of
the troops in the uprising were Moorish, from the Spanish colony in Morocco. Also Nazi
Germany supported the uprising and tried out its new air force in bombing raids against
those regions of Spain still controlled by the Popular Front. The uprising succeeded and
General Francisco Franco became dictator of Spain until his death in 1976.)
Ode To Clothing
Statues
Excerpt
Triangles
Beasts