Cat's Dream

 - Pablo Neruda

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings-
a series of burnt circles-
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.

from: Extravagaria. Alastair Reid, Translator. Copyright 2001.

If You Forget Me

- Pablo Neruda

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.

Poetry

- Pablo Neruda
 
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind. 

Entrance into wood

- Pablo Neruda

With scarce my reason, with my fingers,
with slow waters slow flooded,
I fall to the realm of forget-me-nots,
to a mourning air that clings,
to a forgotten room in ruins,
to a cluster of bitter love.
I fall into shadow, the midst
of things broken down,
I look at spiders, and graze on forests
of secret inconclusive wood,
I pass along damp uprooted fibers
to the live heart of matter and silence.
Smooth substance, oh drywinged rose,
in my sinking I climb your petals,
my feet weighed down with a red fatigue,
and I kneel in your hard cathedral
bruising my lips on an angel.
Here I am faced with your color of the world,
with your pale dead swords,
with your gathered hearts,
with your silent horde.
Here I am with your wave of dying fragrances
wrapped in autumn and resistance:
it is I embarking on a funeral journey
among your yellow scars:
it is I with my sourceless laments,
unnourished, wakeful, alone,
entering darkened corridors,
reaching your mysterious matter.
I see your dry currents moving,
broken-off hands I see growing,
I see your oceanic plants
creaking, shaken by night and fury,
and I feel leaves dying inwards,
amassing green materials
to your desolate stillness.
Pores, veins, circles of smoothness,
weight, silent temperature,
arrows cleaving to your fallen soul,
being asleep in your thick mouth,
dust of sweet pulp consumed,
ash full of snuffed-out souls,
come to me, to my measureless dream,
fall into my room where night falls
and incessantly falls like broken water,
and clasp me to your life, to your death,
to your crushed matter,
to your dead neutral doves,
and let us make fire, and silence, and sound,
and let us burn, and be silent, and bells.

from: The Essential Neruda.

BOOK REVIEWS. Sort Of.

Cat Coming Home - Shirley Rousseau Murphy      

Suspense, excitement, loyalty, new friends, and the promise of a bright new year! What more could you ask?

My Bennie can open just about any door, locked or not, but he can't hit his litter box regularly. And while napping in the center of the (large) kitchen table he fell off, more than once. I have a hard time imagining him solving crimes.

I guess, like us, different cats have different callings.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair - Pablo Neruda   

While I've read many poems written by Pablo Neruda over the years, never have I curled up in my reading chair with a collection. 

*fans air*  

This small book is loaded with passion - love, lust, loss. 

There is nothing soothing about this collection. In fact, evocative is a word I might use. 

It was hard to choose just one poem to share, but here goes . . .


The morning is full

The morning is full of storm
in the heart of summer.

The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs of goodbye,
the wind, traveling, waving them in its hands.

The numberless heart of the wind
beating above our loving silence.

Orchestral and divine, resounding among the trees
like a language full of wars and songs.

Wind that bears off the dead leaves with a quick raid
and deflects the pulsing arrows of the birds.

Wind that topples her in a wave without spray
and substance without weight, and leaning fires.

Her mass of kisses breaks and sinks,
assailed in the door of the summer's wind.