With this entry I begin a new series: Favorite Poems. Every month or so, I will provide an example of what I consider to be a notable poem. A major criterion for selection is poems that are not widely known. Each poem will be followed by a brief analysis. I begin with a lovely poem by Pablo Neruda in the original Spanish, followed by a translation into English.
Oda a unas flores amarillas
Contra el azul moviendo sus azules,
el mar, y contra el cielo,
unas flores amarillas.
Octubre llega.
Y aunque sea
tan importante el mar desarrollando
su mito, su misión, su levadura,
estalla
sobre la arena el oro
de uno sola
planta amarilla
y se amarran
tus ojos
a la tierra,
hunyan del magno mar y sus latides.
Polvo somos, seremos.
Ni aire, ni fuego, ni agua
sino
tierra,
solo tierra
seremos
y tal vez
unas flores amarillas.
--Pablo Neruda
Ode To Some Yellow Flowers
The sea, against the blue
moving its blues, and against the sky,
some yellow flowers.
October arrives.
And even though
the sea is
so important, unfolding
its myth, its mission, its leavening,
the gold of a yellow plant
bursts
on the sand
and fixes your eyes
to the earth,
fleeing the sublime sea and its pulses.
Dust we are, dust we shall be.
Not air, not fire, not water
but
earth,
we shall be
only earth
and perhaps
some yellow flowers.
--Translated by Thomas Dorsett
In the 1950s, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) published three volumes of "Odas Elementarias," ''Elementary Odes," of which this is one. I've selected this poem from a bilingual edition, "Odes to Common Things," translated into English by Ken Krabbenhoft. (I provide my own translation here.) The book contains twenty-five Elementary Odes. The collection was given to me on my seventieth birthday by a friend; I have treasured it ever since. My wife Nirmala and I often travel from Baltimore to Washington D.C. by train; it has become a delightful habit of mine to take the odes along with me and read them while suburbs whoosh (often merely clank and clatter) by.
That Neruda had a love and an eye for simple things, much of which are taken for granted by the rest of us, is obvious to readers of his poems. The titles of the odes reveal his devotion to the things of this world: ode to the table, ode to the chair, ode to the guitar, ode to the spoon, ode to a pair of scissors, etc. The "ode to some yellow flowers" is the shortest ode of the collection, and for me at least, the most beautiful.
The form of the ode is non-stanzaic and loose. Sometimes a line consists of a dozen syllables, sometimes only two; sometimes a line consists of a half dozen words or so, sometimes only one. The reason why one word is emphasized by an entire line is due to its importance in regard to the meaning of the poem, not due to its music, or sound quality. For instance, "estalla," "burst" gets a single line because of its imagistic, dramatic importance; the sudden appearance of the flower "bursts," as it were, into the reader's consciousness.
Although every word has been carefully selected, this poem is not an example of the fusion of music and meaning such as in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. In other words, Neruda's odes are examples of symbolist poetry. Once we assert that the language is clean and that the poem contains no unnecessary words, we can dispense with an analysis of its musical qualities and concentrate on its symbolism.
The theme of the poem is the surprising development of a personal microcosm out of an impersonal, much vaster, undifferentiated macrocosm.
In the first stanza, we receive an image of the sea, a vast cosmos in itself; it is unfolding its myth, its mission and its leavening--what does that mean? The sea is actually doing nothing of the kind--it is the "sea in us," the internal sea of consciousness, that is developing these things as it confronts the cosmos of the sea. This is subtly suggested by the yellow flowers.
To paraphrase: the cosmos, the sea and the sky, is very important, but it is the appearance of the yellow flowers that fix our attention, and make us forget, at least temporarily, that the cosmic background is still there. It is as if we held a print of a Matisse painting before our eyes, which renders invisible whatever is behind it.
The plant with yellow flowers "bursts on the sand." This suggests to me the wonder of evolution, which has given us eyes to see, ears to hear, brains to think, and hearts to feel. It appears, it grows out of, what is completely impersonal and undifferentiated: sand. It is an astonishing event.
It is what I call an "impersonal miracle," that is, even though it arises from a natural process and there is no personal God behind it, it is absolutely ineffable and astounding nevertheless. These are the types of miracle everyone can believe in.
I've read that in Hispanic cultures, yellow can represent mortality. The poem takes place in October; Neruda might well have had the connotation of mortality in mind when the flowers are first mentioned; at the end of the poem, however, they indicate a sense of transcendence as well.
Neruda informs us that we are dust, and as the Bible famously states, to dust we shall return. In other words, we evolved from matter and are nothing more than matter. Neruda's realism here is in agreement with the natural sciences. To leave it there, however, would be nothing less than mere reductionism. Is this all there is to our experience?
We can explain, or at least half-explain, sounds. The physics of sound and hearing are well delineated. But what happens when these sounds are arranged in such a way so as to produce a fugue by Bach, which touches us profoundly? Inexplicable--an aural version of the yellow flowers.
The flowers, previously a symbol of human existence, now become a symbol of transcendence. Neruda remains the realist; the analytical mind has no access to that which transcends it. Thus, the poet uses the word "perhaps," "tal vez," asserting the mere possibility of transcendence. Why? Because he experiences it, but cannot explain it. Transcendence might be merely an illusion, reason tells him, but that's not how it feels, replies the heart.
How can sand produce yellow flowers? Another way of asking this is, how can matter produce persons? How can it be that an Impersonal Magician, as it were, has pulled us out of his hat filled with earth? Neruda makes no attempt to explain the inexplicable. We don't know why yellow flowers burst into existence; that it has occurred, however, is beyond doubt. It is part of our experience; without self-awareness, the yellow flower within us, there would be only dust. Who has ever heard of matter with desires, of matter that refers to itself as an I? Everyone on earth.
The miracle of this poem is that it suggests all this and more without abstractions. Whatever the yellow flowers are, they have come to be through natural forces, which in the poem is represented by sand. We must not forget our origins, but we must also not forget the inexplicable mystery of who we are. The poem helps us realize the miracle of where we are and where we should be: beings that remain rooted in the earth, yet endowed with the yellow flower of consciousness which enables us to broaden, invigorate and even transcend the quotidian mind. An extraordinary poem!
Oda a unas flores amarillas
Contra el azul moviendo sus azules,
el mar, y contra el cielo,
unas flores amarillas.
Octubre llega.
Y aunque sea
tan importante el mar desarrollando
su mito, su misión, su levadura,
estalla
sobre la arena el oro
de uno sola
planta amarilla
y se amarran
tus ojos
a la tierra,
hunyan del magno mar y sus latides.
Polvo somos, seremos.
Ni aire, ni fuego, ni agua
sino
tierra,
solo tierra
seremos
y tal vez
unas flores amarillas.
--Pablo Neruda
Ode To Some Yellow Flowers
The sea, against the blue
moving its blues, and against the sky,
some yellow flowers.
October arrives.
And even though
the sea is
so important, unfolding
its myth, its mission, its leavening,
the gold of a yellow plant
bursts
on the sand
and fixes your eyes
to the earth,
fleeing the sublime sea and its pulses.
Dust we are, dust we shall be.
Not air, not fire, not water
but
earth,
we shall be
only earth
and perhaps
some yellow flowers.
--Translated by Thomas Dorsett
In the 1950s, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) published three volumes of "Odas Elementarias," ''Elementary Odes," of which this is one. I've selected this poem from a bilingual edition, "Odes to Common Things," translated into English by Ken Krabbenhoft. (I provide my own translation here.) The book contains twenty-five Elementary Odes. The collection was given to me on my seventieth birthday by a friend; I have treasured it ever since. My wife Nirmala and I often travel from Baltimore to Washington D.C. by train; it has become a delightful habit of mine to take the odes along with me and read them while suburbs whoosh (often merely clank and clatter) by.
That Neruda had a love and an eye for simple things, much of which are taken for granted by the rest of us, is obvious to readers of his poems. The titles of the odes reveal his devotion to the things of this world: ode to the table, ode to the chair, ode to the guitar, ode to the spoon, ode to a pair of scissors, etc. The "ode to some yellow flowers" is the shortest ode of the collection, and for me at least, the most beautiful.
The form of the ode is non-stanzaic and loose. Sometimes a line consists of a dozen syllables, sometimes only two; sometimes a line consists of a half dozen words or so, sometimes only one. The reason why one word is emphasized by an entire line is due to its importance in regard to the meaning of the poem, not due to its music, or sound quality. For instance, "estalla," "burst" gets a single line because of its imagistic, dramatic importance; the sudden appearance of the flower "bursts," as it were, into the reader's consciousness.
Although every word has been carefully selected, this poem is not an example of the fusion of music and meaning such as in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. In other words, Neruda's odes are examples of symbolist poetry. Once we assert that the language is clean and that the poem contains no unnecessary words, we can dispense with an analysis of its musical qualities and concentrate on its symbolism.
The theme of the poem is the surprising development of a personal microcosm out of an impersonal, much vaster, undifferentiated macrocosm.
In the first stanza, we receive an image of the sea, a vast cosmos in itself; it is unfolding its myth, its mission and its leavening--what does that mean? The sea is actually doing nothing of the kind--it is the "sea in us," the internal sea of consciousness, that is developing these things as it confronts the cosmos of the sea. This is subtly suggested by the yellow flowers.
To paraphrase: the cosmos, the sea and the sky, is very important, but it is the appearance of the yellow flowers that fix our attention, and make us forget, at least temporarily, that the cosmic background is still there. It is as if we held a print of a Matisse painting before our eyes, which renders invisible whatever is behind it.
The plant with yellow flowers "bursts on the sand." This suggests to me the wonder of evolution, which has given us eyes to see, ears to hear, brains to think, and hearts to feel. It appears, it grows out of, what is completely impersonal and undifferentiated: sand. It is an astonishing event.
It is what I call an "impersonal miracle," that is, even though it arises from a natural process and there is no personal God behind it, it is absolutely ineffable and astounding nevertheless. These are the types of miracle everyone can believe in.
I've read that in Hispanic cultures, yellow can represent mortality. The poem takes place in October; Neruda might well have had the connotation of mortality in mind when the flowers are first mentioned; at the end of the poem, however, they indicate a sense of transcendence as well.
Neruda informs us that we are dust, and as the Bible famously states, to dust we shall return. In other words, we evolved from matter and are nothing more than matter. Neruda's realism here is in agreement with the natural sciences. To leave it there, however, would be nothing less than mere reductionism. Is this all there is to our experience?
We can explain, or at least half-explain, sounds. The physics of sound and hearing are well delineated. But what happens when these sounds are arranged in such a way so as to produce a fugue by Bach, which touches us profoundly? Inexplicable--an aural version of the yellow flowers.
The flowers, previously a symbol of human existence, now become a symbol of transcendence. Neruda remains the realist; the analytical mind has no access to that which transcends it. Thus, the poet uses the word "perhaps," "tal vez," asserting the mere possibility of transcendence. Why? Because he experiences it, but cannot explain it. Transcendence might be merely an illusion, reason tells him, but that's not how it feels, replies the heart.
How can sand produce yellow flowers? Another way of asking this is, how can matter produce persons? How can it be that an Impersonal Magician, as it were, has pulled us out of his hat filled with earth? Neruda makes no attempt to explain the inexplicable. We don't know why yellow flowers burst into existence; that it has occurred, however, is beyond doubt. It is part of our experience; without self-awareness, the yellow flower within us, there would be only dust. Who has ever heard of matter with desires, of matter that refers to itself as an I? Everyone on earth.
The miracle of this poem is that it suggests all this and more without abstractions. Whatever the yellow flowers are, they have come to be through natural forces, which in the poem is represented by sand. We must not forget our origins, but we must also not forget the inexplicable mystery of who we are. The poem helps us realize the miracle of where we are and where we should be: beings that remain rooted in the earth, yet endowed with the yellow flower of consciousness which enables us to broaden, invigorate and even transcend the quotidian mind. An extraordinary poem!
