poem: I know How Neruda Felt

for AL, fellow poet and lover of Life

 

I.

 

I think I understand how Neruda felt,

when it all slipped away.

One does not stop loving one's country,

in the same way one does not stop loving

a mentally ill spouse who just so happens

to turn on you and in madness;

forget themselves, inflict the damage

that comes of the cancer

of suspicion, of hatred, of fear:

the terminal stroke

of not enough love to go around,

eating itself from the inside, leaving

jagged wounds in the periphery.

Because, as Neruda knew, it gets bad

and it gets ugly, but it never quite

reaches the heart of the thing.

 

It's just that, the heart gets tired of trying

and separation is sometimes best.

We are the owners, after all,

of our own interior territories,

and we are their guardians. We

must set the limits on what we can take.

 

II.

 

I do not know your whole story, maybe

but these things crashing to life around us-

they always have a prelude;

a buildup, the signs of impending idiocracy,

a tendency towards oppression

of individual choice, perhaps;

a quiet suppression of the human story.

 

Over time, you forget to miss

what was ushered into back pages and then

off the pages, inexorably. It

has always been so easy- to lose Beauty,

far harder to replace the stolen thing.

We can only move forward

trying, no matter how badly,

to recreate the lost vision

of the beautiful crushed things

stored in our memories

 

or in the memories of our own hearts:

rebuilding grand cathedrals,

replanting vast complex forests

in a world that has decreed we should

only ever be content with the ordinary-

 

a small church, a paltry patch of green.

For is that not what the fable

of the fall of Eden was all about,

the failure to recapture something

so beautiful that with time

you forget it even once existed?

 

This drive to be extraordinary

and authentic is the first thing to

be outlawed- the risk is too great,

you must be a productive contributor,

not a taker of others' resources.

 

I do not know your story, but I do know

you watched in living color what I now see coming

and I know

you took the risks anyway, and took the

separation when you had to. And I know

your heart survived 40 years of bloodshed-

I hear it in your laugh, see it in the way

you move through the world.

You give me great hope for my own survival

of what I will bear witness to, the loss

I am doomed to record

in my own lifespan.

 

III.

 

You would immerse me in your world,

and I do not know what to say to that.

 

I would stand and move mountains

but from afar, with my secrets tucked safely

away in my own heart, where their unreasonable,

unsafe nature could not be used against either

their owner, or their recipients.

 

Madness runs in my veins, maybe

and I keep it wrapped as tightly as the

nature of my true politics- world citizen in training

with much, much to learn.

 

Being admired by you is like being loved

by Neruda himself- the weight of a life lived

in joyous celebration of the small,

and critical observation

of the menacing and vast. It makes one recall

utmost humility with every step-

like the Gods came to earth for a tea party

just to show these damned Tea Partiers

what real life and power look like,

and I am just a blade of grass at that picnic,

while you are invited to raise a toast.

 

It is to be embraced by a legend-

as Jordan once said, sometimes

a most uncomfortable thing to find

standing at one's doorstep.

 

How does a leaf enter a whirlpool

without being consumed?

 

 

IV.

 

And maybe the thing is this-

I felt that this was my fight, my battle

with my own inner territory, my own country's

own shifting values towards injustice

and indecency and profound ignorance.

My own separation, my own trial

to keep the heart intact.

 

You actually changed the course

of your nation in many small ways,

while I merely struggle for footing

in two. Maybe I am too much the Warrior,

not the Lover you deserve.

I do not capture hearts and minds.

 

You know exactly who you are;

I have been other people's

errand runner for so long I am just now

setting out to define the woman

I am changing into. And I finally do not care

if no-one reads my words, and maybe

that is an improvement.

 

I see you look at me, the way I behold another.

I know your words are as true

as the granite under our feet where we met.

Life is too short for less than grand passion

in all things, taking the risks. Neruda

knew that, and maybe died for it, too.

 

V.

 

Can you put too much living into a poem?

Into a life? Into an exalted admiration for another?

Into the wind that caresses the body

and the cold that seeps into the bones

and into the spaces we as poets try to grasp

in their complexity and weave together

with fingers that never quite were trained

for the heavy burden they pick up and carry

along unbidden, but they do it anyway

because no-one else will?

 

I have lost my voice and my way,

and in the midst of my fury

at what they are doing to the beauty

of my country, you ask me to put down the sword

and become the Lover. I am not sure I know

how to do that, fear of the gods or no.

 

And I ask myself, how did it feel

to be the flower caressed by Neruda's

own patient, observing, loving hands?

 

Because somewhere between myth

and reality; the larger than life and

just a single man fighting injustice

and loving what was worth loving,

middle ground was found. Long

before the final assault on the hearts

of poets and dreamers,

the stars themselves taught us

how to remember the dream of Beauty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

as with many of my longer works, try this as a stand-alone section by section. It is a personal letter to someone in my life.

published in Volume 1 of "The Larcenist" literary journal 2014.

translated into Spanish here:
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/zorra_encantada/1259986/

Reviews

[emmajoy]

' Long before the final assault on the hearts of poets and dreamers ~ the stars themselves taught us ~ how to remember the dream of Beauty. '.. .. There's so much more to this post than those words, but they flung themselves deep into my core, they're special, valid, remarkable. and need to be returned to.

I read your many, many words twice and slowly. Felt your spirit, your hurt and hope; saw the comparisons of life and dreams, the fading of one time, the lighting of another. And, as ever you amaze me with and in the way you think. Seems you've come to a point or time in life when you're who you are, no apologies, your feel deeply about those around you, but..there's more for you.. somewhere. Beautiful.. sad.. intriguing.. and very much You.

[Marie Anzalone]

Emma, I feel as though I owe you so much in the way of explanations and thank yous. I broke this summer, in a profound way. In 6 months, I have also written over 500 pages of tehnical work in 2 languages. I was simply too tired to be on site, trying to keep up, to respond. I tried and failed in another long-distance romance, and felt shamed by that, too. The attacks for three months on my person and character did nothing to make me want to be here, etiher. Every day I logged in, fearing what fresh new hell would be sent my way while I was down and incredibly vulnerable. I took some of it to heart- my worst mistake. I think the last straw was being attacked for trying to mitigate peace. I see that the person I tried to help is still being bullied, even though he is no longer on site. It is only by reachign the end of along haul with my professional writing, and the sad loss of a fellow writer to suicide, that I am finding the internal fortitude to come back and be here at all. It's my turn now to have my say, and to say, I was hurt pretty badly at a time I could not afford it. And, you're right. I simply do not give a damn any more who reads my words, who criticizes me, makes fun of me behind my back. I simply do not have time for it. I'm living my life and trying to write about it to make sense of it. I choose to share my story because I feel others might be able to take comfort knowing they are not alone. Life is far more beautiful and real and sad, and meaningful when we are open to it.

[Ken Simm.]

There are so many episodes in this to admire. So many parts of heartrending beauty. So many evocative epiphany times and so much soul searching. I cannot help but admire the hell out of this.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Ken. The story that inspired this is bizarre even by my standards. One of my best friends is a retired agriculture minister, and the current Peace Ambassador. Most of his family went into hiding during the civil war, to avoid/ flee persecution, and he was witness to many atrocities. He has kept quiet for 30 years, and now has decided it is time to tell his story. He has asked me to be his biographer, a challenge which I am slowly accpeting and putting into place. During the logistical conversations, he also asked me to be his wife. This poem was my first (but certainly far from last ) attempt to make sense of being the object of affection by a man I consider a second father.

Things that only seem to happen in my life...

[Horizon K.]

There is something so utterly universal in this landscape you have painted Marie. I feel I am
the speaker and at the same time, the one being spoken to here... Being found, yet still lost at the same time as I try to define, redefine, build- destroy and- and create a new palace of stars to hold my heart and my dreams and define myself by... This inner territory, a battle between the ever-changing heart and circumstance and the expectations of the society we are individually immersed in... I feel, will always have shifting evanescent lines...

Anyway, there are many lines throughout this poem that speak so much to my own heart... Glad to see you back:)
HK

[Marie Anzalone]

:-D I owe many thank you's and have been horribly delinquent in correspondence. Truth be told, I have felt very lost and alone and needed to put a few things together. That happens sometimes. I awoke this am with a new poem, and that is that, I guess. Thank you for not giving up on me. I will be by ASAP to start reviewing and corresponding again. Finished the 60 page business plan, and submitted... have a tiny bit of breathing room before I focus again on trying to finish the thesis. Trying to keep my home while I do it.

[Horizon K.]

I'm so glad to hear of your progress... Sometimes the path is clear and sometimes it is not, even when clear, the path can be difficult... I know it has been difficult for you recently. Hoping to hear more bright news soon... my heart is with you:)