Laugh at the night, at the day, at the moon, laugh at the twisted streets of the island, laugh at this clumsy boy who loves you, but when I open my eyes and close them, when my steps go, when my steps return, deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for I would die
The Barista at my little haunt of a coffee shop said to me one day that he had just picked up a copy of "The Captian's Verses" by Pablo Neruda. It's been months but that title has been hanging around in my head so I went to Powells.com to order me a copy. I've been intrigued with the title for what it may contain about boats, the sea, a life at sea, the beauty and often raw ugliness of life at sea - but certainly not about love, which is really what the book is about.
It even has a hauntingly beautiful picture of a dark and stormy seascape on the cover. Pablo Neruda is widely known for his poems about love, beauty, deisre and suffering. But I really don't know his work at all.
This work, while not at all what I had expected, is beautiful and bittersweet. There are moments when I simply just can't continue to read it because it only expands an already gaping hole(largely of my own making) and causes me to wonder at his subject - which was actually his wife Matilde Urrutia, whom he married in 1955.
Forgive. This has nothing really at all to do with Epilogue, but very much, I suppose, to do with Mercurial Dreams.
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3 comments:
Are you going to propose?
Oh, my friend, these Captain's Verses may be more intimately entwined with Epilogue than you think.
I see a poet travelling his lover's body as you have wished to travel the sea, in Neruda's "The Infinite One"
And how, like "Tigre" your fall from the yet unnamed Epilogue and your long slumber was your maker devouring you like a jealous lover, watching over your bones as you were slowly resurrected, stitch by stitch, skull and bone, back to us, the ones in this murky place that love you. Would then, Mercurial Dreams be one and the same with your Epilogue? Or am I simply once again drunk on Neruda's poems, and especially on our friendship?
Once again marvelling at your continued existence,
jcd
Gosh, hurt me - that was beautiful. it reminds me of: "I can no longer tolerate stumbling along with my eyes shut, pretending that this world really has what I need. I just want. And some days it feels so beautiful it hurts." thanks, my friend.
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