April 12, 2023 Spotlight on “Triangles” by Pablo Neruda and Context for My Poem, “Attic Story”

Pablo Neruda

The always-inspiring Chilean poet and statesman, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), wrote in Spanish but his work translates well into English. I have already shared (April 2022) on this blog my love of his poem, “Ode to My Socks,” and, indeed I think of that poem often when I wear the socks I knit for myself or when I am at work on a pair for someone I love. Today, I want to share a poem of his I discovered this morning as I thought about the shape of the triangle.

Triangles


Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.
I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It-s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.

Pablo Neruda

While I am unable to read the original, and I could not find a citation for the translator, I find this poem effective and evocative. (If you know more about this poem’s publication and/or translation history, please let me know, and I shall update this post.)

Context for My Poem, “Attic Story”:

Attic Window (Leslie Schultz)

Some of you might recall that last year there were lots of basement poems in April. Today it was this photograph I took in 2012 that inspired the poem, “Attic Story.”

Until tomorrow, LESLIE

Thai Pavillion, Olbrich Gardens, Madison, WI

2 thoughts on “April 12, 2023 Spotlight on “Triangles” by Pablo Neruda and Context for My Poem, “Attic Story”

  1. Fun for a lot of reasons. Love the Neruda poem and that “something” about his voice. Love that your poem today uses words to cut from nothingness a very clear image of an attic. (Love that I learned a new word: chary!!) Love the photographs that accompany this post.

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