This is one of my most treasured books: Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Common Things. It is full of perfect, deceptively simple seeming poems in praise of ordinary objects and creatures. To me, it speaks of what poetry is meant to be – to make us consider beauty in what is around us everyday. Go and get it just to read Ode to some yellow flowers, or for Ferris Cook’s plain and evocative pencil drawings. I think it would make just the right gift for a young person heading out into the world on their own to school, or to adventure. I know it has offered me many zen moments in crazy times of my life.Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market is not from this book, though it possesses the same spirit and purpose – the celebration of a simple thing. I had not read it until yesterday and it makes me want to sit down and write a poem about my kitchen table or my favourite rolling pin or the pear I ate for lunch.
Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market – by Pablo Neruda
Here,
among the market vegetables,
this torpedo
from the ocean
depths,
a missile
that swam,
now
lying in front of me
dead.
Surrounded
by the earth’s green froth
– these lettuces,
bunches of carrots –
only you
lived through
the sea’s truth, survived
the unknown, the
unfathomable
darkness, the depths
of the sea,
the great
abyss,
le grand abime,
only you:
varnished
black-pitched
witness
to that deepest night…
Read the rest at Poetry Foundation. (Still going to have sushi for dinner?) 🙂
I love that! I must buy that book.
Oh, WOW.
Nope – feeling decidedly vegan…
Love this. Thanks for posting it and introducing me to Pablo.
I’m putting that book on my wish list for sure. I have his Ode to a Pair of Socks stuck in my knitting basket.
I think I must look for that book. Although hubby got me I Explain a Few Things for Chanukah, and I’ve been working my way through it. I find I can read the Spanish passably well, even.
Oh, lovely! I’m going to look for this book…
Yes – go buy it, one and all! It is pretty to look at and offers plenty to think about.
Oh, Pablo Neruda. I think my favorite is the one about the tomato, but you’ve inspired me to go find my copy and check. Thank you!
No sushi, but there was that tuna salad sandwich at lunchtime.
Thinking of “the earth’s green froth” warms me on a cold winter day. Thanks, to you and to Neruda.
Becky at Farm School
http://farmschoolathome.blogspot.com
I LOVE Neruda’s odes. This is one of the reasons I wish I could read Spanish, to read him in the original.
Magnificent. Neruda never lets me down.
Amazing. Love the ending:
the only
true
machine
of the sea: unflawed,
undefiled,
navigating now
the waters of death.
Wow. Thank you for introducing me to this poem!
Glad you liked it. I agree the ending is incredible. I love “the only true machine of the sea.”
The ending is great. Thank you for introducing me!
“the only true machine of the sea.”
I love the ending too. Such an unusual image.
Very enlightening blog, I found it thru a Yahoo search. I bookmarked your page & I will be back! 🙂