The Poet's Obligation

To whoever is not listening to the sea

this Friday morning,

to whoever is cooped up

in house or office, factory
or woman or street

or mine or harsh prison cell.

To him I come, and,

without speaking or looking,

I arrive and open the door of his prison,

and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,

a great fragment of thunder sets in motion.

The rumble of the planet and the foam,

The raucous rivers of the ocean flood,

The star vibrates swiftly in its corona,

and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,

I ceaselessly must listen to and keep

the sea's lamenting in my awareness,

I must feel the crash of the hard water

and gather it up in a perpetual cup

so that, wherever those in prison may be,

wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation.

I may be there with an errant wave,

I may move, passing through windows,

and hearing me, eyes will glance upward

saying, "How can I reach the sea?"

And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,

the starry echoes of the wave,

a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,

a rustling of salt withdrawing,

the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea

will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

Daughter of the sea

You are the daughter of the sea,

oregano's first cousin.

Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;

cook, your blood is quick as the soil.

Everything you do is full of flowers,

rich with the earth.

Your eyes go out toward the water,

and the waves rise;

Your hands go out to the earth

and the seeds swell;

You know the deep essence
of water and the earth,

conjoined in you like a formula for clay.

Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces,

they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen.

This is how you become everything that lives.

And so at last, you sleep,

in the circle of my arms

that push back the shadows
so that you can rest

vegetables, seaweed, herbs:

the foam of your dreams.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda

De Chileense dichter Pablo Neruda (voor ons hiervoor nog onbekend). Hij woonde in Valparaiso, een geweldige kunstenaars/havenplaats in Chili en doet qua persoon denken aan figuren als Dali of Picasso.

The wave you let loose,

arc of identity,

exploded feather,

when it was unleashed it was only foam,

and without being wasted came back to be born.

The Great Ocean, Pablo Neruda.

De zee was een grote inspiratiebron voor Neruda.

Ode to the sea

 

O sea, this is your name,

O comrade ocean:

don't waste time or water

getting so upset:

help us instead.

We're meager

fishermen

men from the shore.

We're hungry and cold

and you're our foe.

Don't beat so hard,

don't shout so loud:

open your green coffers,

place gifts of silver in our hands;

give us this day our daily fish.

 

Pablo Neruda