Two by Pablo and Sam

Pastoral 

I copy out mountains, rivers, clouds. 

I take my pen from my pocket. I note down 

a bird in its rising 

or a spider in its little silkworks. 

Nothing else crosses my mind. I am air, 

clear air, where the wheat is waving, 

where a bird's flight moves me, the uncertain 

fall of a leaf, the globular 

eye of a fish unmoving in the lake, 

the statues sailing in the clouds, 

the intricate variations of the rain. 

Nothing else crosses my mind except 

the transparency of summer. I sing only of the wind, 

and history passes in its carriage, 

collecting its shrouds and medals, 

and passes, and all I feel is rivers. 

I stay alone with the spring. 

Ode to Bicycles 

I was walking

down

a sizzling road:

the sun popped like

a field of blazing maize,
the

earth

was hot,

an infinite circle

with an empty

blue sky overhead.

A few bicycles
passed
me by,

the only

insects

in

that dry

moment of summer,

silent,

swift,

translucent;

they

barely stirred

the air.


Workers and girls
were riding to their
factories,
giving

their eyes

to summer,

their heads to the sky,

sitting on the

hard

beetle backs

of the whirling

bicycles

that whirred

as they rode by

bridges, rosebushes, brambles

and midday.

I thought about evening when

the boys

wash up,

sing, eat, raise

a cup

of wine

in honor

of love

and life,

and waiting

at the door,

the bicycle,

stilled,

because

only moving

does it have a soul,

and fallen there

it isn’t

a translucent insect

humming

through summer

but

a cold

skeleton

that will return to

life

only

when it’s needed,

when it’s light,

that is,

with

the

resurrection

of each day.

Poems: Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Paintings: Sam Flores