It’s time to move on to the penultimate poem in my 3+1 Things memorization project. The Mark Strand for July and August was just right for the end of summer and feeling a little sad, but the September/October poem I picked doesn’t feel as appropriate.
Should I change poems to the Galway Kinnel I posted in June? To this? (That might be too sad, actually.) Or should I stick with the plan so I have at least one happier poem under my belt?
Here it is, if you want to help me decide:
Sonnet C, from 100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda
In the center of the earth I will push aside
the emeralds so that I can see you–
you like an amanuensis, with a pen
of water, copying the green sprigs of plants.
What a world! What deep parsley!
What a ship sailing through the sweetness!
And you, maybe–and me, maybe–a topaz.
There’ll be no more dissensions in the bells.
There won’t be anything but all the fresh air,
apples carried on the wind,
the succulent book in the woods:
and there where the carnations breathe, we will begin
to make ourselves a clothing, something to last
through the eternity of a victorious kiss.
Stick with the Neruda. I think it is both happier and qualitatively better than the Kinnel poem from June. The Levertov “Talking to Grief” is excellent, but very sad. Too sad I think. Yup, the Neruda pwns all.