TALKING POINT: On the death Anniversary (23rd Sept) of An Amazing Poet - Pablo Neruda

Today, 23rd September is death anniversary of an amazing poet Pablo Neruda - In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language." Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was his personal color of hope. The poetry below is the most fitting tribute to this great writer...

Oh Earth, wait for me
__________________
From: ‘Memorial de Isla Negra’

Turn me oh sun
towards my native destiny,
rain from the ancient forest,
return to me the fragrance and the swords
that fall from the sky,
the solitary peace of field and rock,
the moisture at the margins of the river,
the scent of the larch,
the wind, alive like a heart
beating among the remote flock
of the great araucaria.

Earth, return to me your pure gifts
the towers of silence that rose
from the solemnity of their roots:
I want to return to being what I have not been,
learn to return from such depths
that amongst all the things of nature
I could live or not live: no matter
to be one more stone, the dark stone,
the pure stone that is carried by the river.

__________________________________
Pablo Neruda
(July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973)

"A poet", Neruda stated in his Stockholm speech of acceptance of the Nobel Prize, "is at the same time a force for solidarity and for solitude."

Poetry text and translation from http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/Neruda.htm#_Toc12957989

Here is one of his interesting and beautiful verse called "Body of a Woman". This verse as one of the writer said, is an introductory text to the poetry of desire.

Body of a woman

_________________

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,

You look like a world, lying in surrender

My rough peasant's body digs in you

And makes the son leap from the depth of the earth

I was alone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,

And night swamped me with its crushing invasion.

To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,

Like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling

...

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.

My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!

Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows

And weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

________________

Pablo Neruda

Translated by W S Merwin

The image is from the walls of the famous sun temple "Konark" on the shores of Puri - India.


Text and Image Source WikiPedia
_________________
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya