Cardboard home. Upward immobility. [Downtown Los Angeles]: photo by Andrew Murr, 19 July 2016
Nunca recordaremos haber muerto.
Tanta paciencia
para ser tuvimos
anotando
los números, los días,
los años y los meses,
los cabellos, las bocas que besamos,
y aquel minuto de morir
lo dejamos sin anotación:
se lo damos a otro de recuerdo
o simplemente al agua,
al agua, al aire, al tiempo.
Ni de nacer tampoco
guardamos la memoria,
aunque importante y fresco fue ir naciendo:
y ahora no recuerdas ni un detalle,
no has guardado ni un ramo
de la primera luz.
Se sabe que nacemos.
Se sabe que en la sala
o en el bosque
o en el tugurio del barrio pesquero
o en los cañaverales crepitantes
hay un silencio extrañamente extraño,
un minuto solemne de madera
y una mujer se dispone a parir.
Se sabe que nacimos.
Pero de la profunda sacudida
de no ser a existir, a tener manos,
a ver, a tener ojos,
a comer y llorar y derramarse
y amar y amar y sufrir y sufrir,
de aquella transición o escalofrío
del contenido eléctrico que asume
un cuerpo más como una copa viva,
y de aquella mujer deshabitada,
la madre que allí queda con su sangre
y su desgarradora plenitud
y su fin y comienzo, y el desorden
que turba el pulso, el suelo, las frazadas,
hasta que todo se recoge y suma
un nudo más el hilo de la vida,
nada, no quedó nada en tu memoria
del mar bravío que elevó una ola
y derribó del árbol una manzana oscura.
No tienes más recuerdo que tu vida
Skid Row morning (woman in white boots) [Downtown Los Angeles]: photo by Andrew Murr, 27 March 2016
We will never have any memory of dying.
We were so patient
about our being,
noting down
numbers, days,
years and months,
hair, and the mouths we kiss,
and that moment of dying
we let pass without a note --
we leave it to others as memory,
or we give it simply to water,
to water, to air, to time.
Nor do we even keep
the memory of being born,
although to come into being was tumultuous and new;
and now you don’t remember a single detail,
and haven’t kept even a trace
of your first light.
It’s well known that we are born.
It’s well known that in the room
or in the wood
or in the shelter in the fisherman’s quarter
or in the rustling canefields
there is a quite unusual silence,
a grave and wooden moment as
a woman prepares to give birth.
It’s well known that we were all born.
But of that abrupt translation
from not being to existing, to having hands,
to seeing, to having eyes,
to eating and weeping and overflowing
and loving and loving and suffering and suffering,
of that transition, that quivering
of an electric presence, raising up
one body more, like a living cup,
and of that woman left empty,
the mother who is left there in her blood
and her lacerated fullness,
and its end and its beginning, and disorder
tumbling the pulse, the floor, the covers,
till everything comes together and adds
one knot more to the thread of life,
nothing, nothing remains in your memory
of the savage sea which summoned up a wave
and plucked a shrouded apple from the tree.
The only thing you remember is your life.
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973): Los nacimientos (Births), from Plenos Poderes (Fully Empowered), 1962, translated by Alastair Reid
My kind of woman (San Leandro, California): photo by efo, 14 July 2016
Intimations of a Great Bottom in the Sky
INDIA - Paramilitary trooper stands guard during a curfew in the Batmaloo area of Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 17 August 2016
INDIA - The shadow of a paramilitary trooper standing guard during an evening curfew in Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 17 August 2016
Like the moment of birth
The moment of death is a moment you will never remember
The moment of death is a moment you will never remember
SUDAN - Authorities perform maintenance on section of highway that has been damaged due to flooding. By Asrhraf Shazly: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 15 August 2016
Sudanese children play in mud in the village of Makli that was flooded as the river Gash burst its banks: photo by Ashraf Shazly/AFP, 15 August 2016
#Airlander 10, World’s Longest #Aircraft, Nicknamed The ‘Flying Bum': image via Wicked Staffing @wicked_staffing, 8 August 2016
@modjo1978 @CardingtonSheds that's a great pic of an iconic moment #cardingtonhangars #Airlander: image via Hammers Legend @3_@niceyz521, 17 August 2016
History in the making tonight! #Airlander @AirVehicles: image via Dawn Wilson @RainbowWilson, 17 August 2016
A man takes his seat as preparations are made for the maiden flight of the Airlander 10, the largest aircraft in the world, at Cardington airfield in Bedfordshire: photo by Gareth Fuller/PA, 17 August 2016
A man takes his seat as preparations are made for the maiden flight of the Airlander 10, the largest aircraft in the world, at Cardington airfield in Bedfordshire: photo by Gareth Fuller/PA, 17 August 2016
Boys aboard an abandoned boat collect recyclable items through polluted waters in front of fishing boats at Fish Harbor in Karachi, Pakistan: photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters, 17 August 2016
PAKISTAN - A vendor waits for customers next to a mall in Islamabad. By Aamir Qureshi #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 17 August 2016
. A melted sign from a McDonald’s restaurant shows the damage as firefighters check the area after a wildfire swept through Cajon Junction, California: photo by Eugene Garcia/EPA, 17 August 2016
INDIA - A man offers prayer at temple on the banks of Yamuna River as floodwaters recede in New Delhi. By @PrakashAFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 August 2016
US - A northern California wildfire grew rapidly destroying homes and forcing residents to flee. By @gabriellelurie: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 16 August 2016
US - A rabbit sits under bush during the Blue Cut wildfire in Phelan, California. By @jAlcornPhoto #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 17 August 2016
US - Mud covered belongings are seen on the floor of a home after flood water receded in Louisiana. By @b_smialowski: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 17 August 2016
Divers and fishermen carry the image of the Virgin of Palm as a girl touches it at El Rinconcillo beach during the yearly Virgin of Palm maritime pilgrimage in Algeciras, Spain: photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez, 16 August 2016
Divers and fishermen carry the image of the Virgin of Palm as a girl touches it at El Rinconcillo beach during the yearly Virgin of Palm maritime pilgrimage in Algeciras, Spain: photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez, 16 August 2016
4 comments:
Birth: Prologue Scene
I'd completely forgotten that Nicole Kidman movie, but you've brought it back to mind. And Neruda: predictably brilliant. Thanks, Tom.
ah Neruda ...it shakes me to the core!
Thanks Terry and Sandra.
The great Neruda always seems pertinent while almost everybody else feels dated, even (especially!) the most recent contenders. Whoever they are.
Of course it's not as though there were a continually blooming rose garden of genius world poets we were promised and into which, for lack of the real article, we could introduce any old clump of plastic, award it an MFA, paint it with pretty colours, drop a grant or two on it, and call it masterpiece.
Birth, a nonsensical yet weirdly intriquing conception, a creepy yet strangely unforgettable film, with one of the great opening sequences of all time. The beauty owing to a cinematographer whom I ought to go and look up... Savides if I recall... and the score by Alexander Desplats, grand movie music in the old time sense.
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