Up late or early, anyone’s choice. I was impressed enough by an interview on Morning Joe to talk about it at La Parola Vivace, my other blog:
“… one advantage to half-sleeping at odd hours is that I often am privileged to tune in to Morning Joe on MSNBC. This morning’s interview with Condoleeza Rice was worth losing sleep to catch.”
To read the rest of this post, please click here.
Now that the miners and rescue workers are safe, here’s a poem in draft:
.
Neruda Returns
As Light, Bread –
“Because we plant its seed
and grow it
not for one man
but for all,
there will be enough:
there will be bread
for all the peoples of the earth.”
. From The Ode to Bread, Pablo Neruda
.
Enough of the Chilean miners, they are saved.
What of those trapped in the angry mountain,
The children with nothing to eat,
No one to sing to them–
.
Neruda stopped off
In the night-clad mine in Chile;
He came as a white mariposa
To the carrier pigeon handler
He paid his respects;
he sang that there is bread enough
for all.
But his heart is with the children,
In the caves we cannot see.
His ghost, living
In their hands and hair.
His fire and ice, the lullabies
The dying half-remember,
Rise in the throat: Even so
They keen, cry
For mothers smelling of milk and honey
.
Snow blankets the Americas.
It is unseen winter; the landscape pocked
With deep, open graves. We shine a light down:
“Are you all right? I’ll be back.”
We dance away, drinking glasses
Of forgetfulness.
.
Lightning sears the faces
Of the ones waiting
For rescue,
Lashing its long tail
into the tunnels–
I will lead you there. Here
Is someone buried underground.
He is trapped in the mountain.
There is no morning
No sun. For this person
The universe
Has swallowed itself.
Hope is coiled around itself
An adder
in rigor.
.
ii
.
Someone is weeping
In a garden in Geneva
At his wife’s headstone.
Her song is everywhere
But she, the body of love
Has gone.
He pulls the satin-edged night
Over his head–
She touched his face at the end
Reprising her Covent Garden
Adio del Pasatto–
Quickly, amore,
There is one with roses
In her hair, at the gate.
.
Which fate is worse:
The tomb of grief,
Self-imposed exile
In solidarity with the lost?
Such heavy stones no one
Feverishly at work
Can pull them away–
Or change the destinies of starvation,
Millions of thin dark bodies
Asleep on a plain
Descended upon
By the true armies
Of the night.
.
Light never enters a mine.
Only the semblance of light
Only the echo of song
A match flares
And goes out.
Waiting for rescue
They die a thousand deaths.
When love hauls them
To the surface,
They weep in someone’s hair
.
Night makes deep tunnels
In the earth
Hides the children there
Promises them water, dreams
Not starved for air.
Neruda’s phantom, the ghosts
Of our hands, prayers
Of little consequence,
Reassurances we send down to them
All they have; there is no bread
For the damned.
.
copyright Jenne’ R. Andrews 2010
What a lyrical take on this event that’s captured the world’s attention. So many wonderful lines. I especially like “Lightning sears the faces/. . . Lashing its long tale/into the tunnels” and “Hope is coiled around itself / An Adder/ in rigor.” (great image!), “Light never enters a mine./” , “Night makes deep tunnels”, “dreams/Not starved for air”, “… the ghosts / Of our hands, payers / Of little consequence”, and “… there is no bread / For the damned”.
I’ll want to come back and read this again.
Thanks, Maureen…xxxj
Wow! I love the “Hope is coiled around itself / An Adder/ in rigor” also. Excellent points, eloquently made. Coincidentally I’ve recently found and been reading Neurda’s Odes – Ode to Bread just this weekend. I really like this, Jenne’. Thank you.
Cheers,
Maggie
Hi Maggie– glad you stopped by– tried to find you but you’ve moved, I think? Anyway thanks for reminding me I had the Ode to Bread at back of my mind and was so tired I forgot to grab the epigraph…. I thought about Neruda and Bly’s translations quite a bit during this ordeal. I hope the reference in one stanza is clear– juxtaposing the death of Sutherland against the bringing of the miners back…xxxj
Hi Jenne’,
yes, having the epigraph there does make a difference, I think.
And yes, I moved from wordpress.com to a self-hosted site but my URL should be the same: http://lifeinaskillet.com. Let me know if you have trouble so I can fix it!
cheers,
Maggie