Where Have all the Poets Gone?

I was happily surprised recently to meet someone who is familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda. In this prosaic world, it is rare to meet poetic spirits. During our discussion, I discovered that a documentary film is currently being produced on the life of Neruda. The film will be narrated by the Grammy-award winning singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega and directed by the Oscar-nominated Carlos Bolado. I'm looking forward to its release and would like to share one of my favorite Neruda poems. Enjoy.

Leaning in to the Evenings (translated from the original Spanish)

Leaning into the evenings I throw my sad nets

to your ocean eyes

There my lonliness stretches and burns in the tallest bonfire,

arms twisting like a drowning man's.

I cast red signals over your absent eyes

which lap like the sea at the lighthouse shore.

You guard only darkness, my distant female,

sometimes the coast of dread emerges from your stare.

Leaning into the evenings I toss my sad nets

to that sea which stirs your ocean eyes.

The night birds peck at the first stars

that twinkle like my soul as I love you.

Night gallops on her shadowy mare

scattering blue wheat stalks over the fiields.

Purple Dusk

It is the murmur of a brook
The laughter of a child
All the fragrance and romance
Of woods and grasses wild

It is inside the echo in
The hills that hold the dawn
In every dream that lingers
When the purple dusk is gone

It is the quiet gentleness
Of sky and waters blue
It is the all-embracing gift
That life has given you

-Thank you, amazing, talented, and wonderful friend for sharing this poem with me.