Fierce:Fragile

Between what I see and what I say,

Between what I say and what I keep silent,

Between what I keep silent and what I dream,

Between what I dream and what I forget:

Poetry.

It slips

between yes and no,

says

what I keep silent

keeps silent

what I say

dreams

what I forget.

It is not speech:

It is an act.

It is an act of speech.

Poetry

speaks and listens:

It is real.

And as soon as I say

“it is real”

It vanishes.

Is it then more real?

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the planet that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straighforwardly, without complex ties or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist; nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda was a contemporary of Octavio Paz, one of my all time favorite poets.  I never read any poetry of his that I loved, so I never paid him much mind… till I read this poem.  I really have to be in the right mood for a poem to hit me the way I want it to.  If I had to label that mood, I would call it sentimental.  I think the reason I never liked Neruda’s poetry was because I never read his work while I was in the right mood.  This Love Sonnet was my gateway into his work.

My eyes discover you
naked
and cover you
with a warm rain
of glances

.

A cage of sounds
open
to the morning
whiter
than your thighs
at night
your laughter
and even more your foliage
your blouse of the moon
as you leap from bed

Sifted light
the singing spiral
reels-in whiteness
Chiasm
X
planted in a chasm

.

My day
exploded
in your night
Your cry
leaps in pieces
Night
spreads
your body
washing under
your bodies
knot
Your body once again

.

Vertical hour
drought
spins its flashing wheels
Garden of knives
feast of deceit
Through these reverberations
you enter
unscathed
the river of my hands

.

Quicker than fever
you swim in the darkness
your shadow clearer
between caresses
your body blacker
You leap
to the bank of the improbable
toboggans of how when because yes
Your laughter burns your clothes
your laughter
wets my forehead my eyes my reasons
Your body burns your shadow
You swing on the trapeze of fear
the terrors of your childhood
watch me
from your cliffhanging eyes
wide-open
making love
at the cliff
Your body clearer
Your shadow blacker
You laugh over your ashes

.

Burgundy tongue of the flayed sun
tongue that licks your land of sleepless dunes
hair unpinned
tongue of whips
spoken tongues
unfastened on your back
enlaced
on your breasts
writing that writes you
with spurred letters
disowns you
with branded signs
dress that undresses you
writing that dresses you in riddles
writing in which I am buried
Hair unpinned
the great night swift over your body
jar of hot wine
spilled
on the tablets of the law
howling nude and the silent cloud
cluster of snakes
cluster of grapes
trampled
by the cold soles of the moon
rain of hands leaves fingers wind
on your body
on my body on your body
Hair unpinned
foliage of the tree of bones
the tree of aerial roots that drink night from the sun
The tree of flesh The tree of death

.

Last night
in your bed
we were three:
the moon you & me

.

I open
the lips of your night
damp hollows
unborn
echoes:
whiteness
a rush
of unchained water

.

To sleep to sleep in you
or even better to wake
to open my eyes
at your center
black white black
white
To be the unsleeping sun
your memory ignites
(and
the memory of me in your memory

.

And again the sap skywise
rises
(salvia your name
is flame)
Sapling
crackling
(rain
of blazing snow)
My tongue
is there
(Your rose
burns through the snow)
is
now
(I seal your sex)
dawn
from danger drawn

All time favorite that deserves to be read several times and appreciated for millions of little things which I cannot pretend to understand fully. Sadly, the formatting of this poem did not stay in place here, so if you have a chance, find this in print and read it again. And again. And again.

Maithuna also happens to be the Sanskrit word for union, and is a reference to yogic sacred sex.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, — so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

If you’re going to be born a poet, what better name to have than Edna St.Vincent Millay?!? Classic and obvious in its meaning, this poem is beautiful because of its profound commentary on absence as paradox.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

This poem is a huge part of the inspiration for the title of this blog (Fierce:Fragile)
Cummings talks about the power of intense fragility, which is a juxtaposition that sums up in a few words what it means to be human (to me, anyway).