I have been absolutely obsessed with Pablo Neruda recently, and a wonderful friend has directed me to a collection of his entitled “The Captain’s Verses.” I researched the collection and found Akira Rabelais’ website/blog. Rabelais is a writer/composer based in LA. His website is absolutely incomprehensible, but there is a link to the collection of Neruda’s “The Captain’s Verses:”

Here is the link: http://akirarabelais.com/v/captainsverses/captainsverses.html

There are many wonderful poems in the collection, and two that I’ve focused on are:

NIGHT ON THE ISLAND

All night I have slept with you
next to the sea, on the island.
Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and sleep,
between fire and water.

Perhaps very late
our dreams joined
at the top or at the bottom,
up above like branches moved by a common wind,
down below like red roots that touch.

Perhaps your dream
drifted from mine
and through the dark sea
was seeking me
as before,
when you did not yet exist,
when without sighting you
I sailed by your side,
and your eyes sought
what now-
bread, wine, love, and anger-
I heap upon you
because you are the cup
that was waiting for the gifts of my life.

I have slept with you
all night long while
the dark earth spins
with the living and the dead,
and on waking suddenly
in the midst of the shadow
my arm encircled your waist.

Neither night
nor sleep could separate us.

I have slept with you
and on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of sea water, of seaweed,
of the depths of your life,
and I received your kiss
moistened by the dawn
as if it came to me
from the sea that surrounds us.

WIND ON THE ISLAND

The wind is a horse:
hear how he runs
through the sea, through the sky.

He wants to take me: listen
how he roves the world
to take me far away.

Hide me in your arms
just for this night,
while the rain breaks
against sea and earth
its innumerable mouth.

Listen how the wind
calls to me galloping
to take me far away.

With your brow on my brow,
with your mouth on my mouth,
our bodies tied
to the love that consumes us,
let the wind pass
and not take me away.

Let the wind rush
crowned with foam,
let it call to me
and seek me galloping in the shadow,
while I, sunk
beneath your big eyes,
just for this night
shall rest, my love.

And another :

IF YOU FORGET ME

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for 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.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,

at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

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.

 

I’m enamored by the language in all of Neruda’s poems, but “Night on the Island” resonates particularly well within the context of the course. I also wanted to connect this poem with the piece in the New Yorker on Diana Nyad. There is a moment in the article when the salt water of the ocean is described as amniotic. Neruda’s poem echoes the sentiments of warmth and protection, but also closeness and love, that are connoted by the word amniotic–a term that links one to birth and the figure of the mother.

That’s all for now!

Sam