Hay cementerios solos,
tumbas llenas de huesos sin sonido,
el corazón pasando un túnel
oscuro, oscuro, oscuro,
como un naufragio hacia adentro nos morimos,
como ahogarnos en el corazón,
como irnos cayendo desde la piel al alma.
Hay cadáveres,
hay pies de pegajosa losa fría,
hay la muerte en los huesos,
como un sonido puro,
como un ladrido sin perro,
saliendo de ciertas campanas, de ciertas tumbas,
creciendo en la humedad como el llanto o la lluvia.
Yo veo, solo, a veces,
ataúdes a vela
zarpar con difuntos pálidos, con mujeres de trenzas muertas,
con panaderos blancos como ángeles,
con niñas pensativas casadas con notarios,
ataúdes subiendo el río vertical de los muertos,
el río morado,
hacia arriba, con las velas hinchadas por el sonido
de la muerte,
hinchadas por el sonido silencioso de la muerte.
A lo sonoro llega la muerte
como un zapato sin pie, como un traje sin hombre,
llega a golpear con un anillo sin piedras y sin dedo,
llega a gritar sin boca, sin lengua,
sin garganta.
Sin embargo sus pasos suenan
y su vestido suena, callado como un árbol.
Yo no sé, yo conozco poco, yo apenas veo,
pero creo que su canto tiene color de violetas húmedas,
de violetas acostumbradas a la tierra,
porque la cara de la muerte es verde,
y la mirada de la muerte es verde,
con la aguda humedad de una hoja de voileta
y su grave color de invierno exasperado.
Pero la muerte va también por el mundo vestida de escoba,
lame el suelo buscando difuntos,
la muerte está en la escoba,
es la lengua de la muerte buscando muertos,
es la aguja de la muerte buscando hilo.
La muerte está en los catres:
en los colchones lentos, en las frazadas negras
vive tendida, y de repente sopla:
sopla un sonido oscuro que hincha sábanas,
y hay camas navegando a un puerto
en donde está esperando, vestida de almirante.
Only Death
There are lone cemeteries,
tombs filled with soundless bones,
the heart passing through a tunnel
dark, dark, dark;
like a shipwreck we die inward
like smothering in our hearts,
like slowly falling from our skin to our soul.
There are corpses,
there are feet of sticky, cold gravestone,
there is death in the bones,
like a pure sound,
like a bark without a dog,
coming from certain bells, from certain tombs,
growing in the dampness like teardrops or raindrops.
I see alone, at times,
coffins with sails
weighing anchor with pale corpses, with dead-tressed women,
with bakers white as angels,
with pensive girls married to notaries;
coffins going up the vertical river of the dead,
the dark purple river,
upward, with the sails swollen by the sound
of death,
swollen by the silent sound of death.
To resonance comes death
like a shoe without a foot, like a suit without a man,
she comes to knock with a stoneless and fingerless ring,
she comes to shout without mouth, without tongue,
without throat.
Yet her steps sound
and her dress sounds, silent as a tree.
I know little, I am not well acquainted, I can scarcely see,
but I think that her song has the color of moist violets,
of violets accustomed to the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the gaze of death is green,
with the sharp dampness of a violet
and its dark color of exasperated winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
she licks the ground looking for corpses,
death is in the broom,
it is death’s tongue looking for dead bodies,
it is death’s needle looking for thread.
Death is in the cots:
in the slow mattresses, in the black blankets
she lives stretched out, and she suddenly blows:
she blows a dark sound that puffs out the sheets,
and there are beds sailing to a port
where she is waiting, dressed as an admiral.
Solo la muerte was first published in Residencia de la Tierra (1933); Translation from Neruda: Selected Poems, Ed. Nathaniel Tarn. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.
Back at ya:
WHEN DEATH COMES
Mary Oliver
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
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yb: Is the “she” in Neruda’s poem, “death”? Or a ship? Or both?
I’ve never read this Neruda poem before. I associate him primarily with those gorgeous love poems, so this was a real discovery for me.
Tell me more about the photos.
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I just read Mary Oliver’s poem out loud.
I don’t want to find myself sighing or frightened,
or full of argument.
I can just picture one at death’s door, afraid to pass, arguing, “No, not yet!”
Great poem. Thanks for posting it.
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Third time’s a charm…
Sharonimo, this is my third attempt to respond to your questions about the “she” in the poem and about the photos. (My wireless is finicky these days.)
My interpretation of the “she” is that it’s Death. I ran across a translation yesterday that did not assign gender, but I prefer the one that does, as it’s truer, in my opinion, to Spanish. I wrote a post last night, will publish this morning, that puts Solo La Muerte into context. He wrote this and other poems while serving a string of honorary posts as Chilean consul to countries like Burma. He consumed a huge amount of poetry by other poets, he met other writers, including Garcia Lorca, around this time. It is said he experimented with poetic form, breaking free traditional confines and structures; consequently the poems written in this period are more esoteric than his earlier poems. They have a surreal quality (no surprise, then, that I love them so much). They also mark his literary breakthrough (in terms of his rise as a poet).
Re: the photo. It’s actually only one, which I took last night of an incredible piece by the same Peruvian folk artist, Claudio Jimenez, whose piece I photographed and used for the Rich in Ritual post. It’s a 3-D sculpture of a raucous Day of the Dead wedding, the skeletons reveling about the married couple, playing music, getting drunk, dancing. It’s really wonderful. The figures are made of potato dough that dries hard and preserves, which Claudio then paints and seals. He also made for me a series of masks, devils and demons. They’re so playful and representative of how Latin Americans see Death, as something to embrace, to dance with, to celebrate. I’ll photograph the entire piece and post it around Nov 1, Day of the Dead.
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Thanks for taking the time to provide details of the photo — makes me want to see the actual piece as well as your thoughts on the death poem.
Rich, rich stuff. I never would have thought I’d feel this alive after reading a poem about and seeing images of death.
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I know what you mean. The first few times I read it I thought it was dark and heavy, the imagery and incantation all so eerie. Coffins floating in a river, or a bark without a dog. Stoneless and ringless finger knocking on the door.
And yet, death’s song the color of moist violets, her face green, her gaze green, her breath so strong it swells the sheets and powers the boat onward to where she’s waiting to greet (dressed as an admiral, as in, I will guide you).
The poem captures the all-powerful, the everything-ness of death: horrifying reality, beauty, sadness, joy, fear, surrender.
The photo, I thought, was too festive for the poem, but perhaps not. I just looked more closely at the faces of the skeletons, and there is something frightening about their joyful abandonment.
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“Joyful abandonment.” Love that phrase. And probably the only two words writers and artists need to get started, don’t you think?
Last evening I attended the premiere of a documentary about Pete Seeger and get this: in one part, he sings a song in Spanish and then in English, and leads the audience to do the same. When the film ended, Seeger’s grandson came on stage and did the exact same song the same way. So there I was singing a song in both Spanish and English, already juiced by this Neruda post.
I can’t make up this stuff!
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I don’t think the photo is too festive for the piece. They augment each other nicely. Death is everything – it provides joy and room for rebirth. But also sadness, loneliness, time to grieve.
The Spanish version is so poetic. I’m glad you provided both in the post.
I like this stanza from Neruda. There’s something about the down-to-earthness of death as a broom or needle and thread:
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
she licks the ground looking for corpses,
death is in the broom,
it is death’s tongue looking for dead bodies,
it is death’s needle looking for thread.
I like this from the Mary Oliver:
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility
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[…] -Related to posts Got Poetry (National Poem In Your Pocket Day), Getting To Know Pablo Neruda, and Neruda – Solo La Muerte. […]
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[…] **Take a look at an interesting poem in which Neruda discusses death and bones: “Solo la muerte“ […]
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