Celebrating the Earth with Pablo Neruda

I believe that we can best solve our climate challenges and bring the Earth back into balance and health not through fear and watching the climate countdown clock, but with passion and praise!

In keeping with that belief, I’d like to offer a series of poems that celebrate the earth and our connection to the natural world.

One of my favorite poets is Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). Neruda is often called the national poet of Chile, and his poetry has been translated from the original Spanish into many languages. His poetry includes sensual, passionate love poems and sonnets, and also includes a variety of odes that celebrate the ordinary.  Ode to Salt, Ode to Broken Things, and even Ode to My Socks are examples of these delightful poems. If you haven’t yet discovered Neruda, I would highly recommend him! 

This poem, Sonnet XXXIV, contains wonderful similes and metaphors expressing our kinship to the earth. It’s lovely to read, and especially wonderful when read out loud and “tasted” on the tongue!
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Sonnet XXXIV

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
~Translation by Stephen Tapscott