Poetry

Esa Riippa

Poetry

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth

had no way

with names,

my eyes were blind,

and something started in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire,

and I wrote the first faint line,

faint, without substance, pure

nonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing,

and suddenly I saw

the heavens

unfastened

and open,

planets,

palpitating plantations,

shadow perforated,

riddled

with arrows, fire and flowers,

the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind

Pablo Neruda

It's about time we had a poem about poetry. Not the poem itself, but Neruda's sense of being "searched out for" or "summoned" by poetry. Neruda doesn't look for things to write about, they look for him. And he doesn't know what to say! "My mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind"... It reminds me of how God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery, and Moses protested that he couldn't speak well. Neruda talks about "the branches of night", and "violent fires" - isn't that like a burning bush? And Neruda wasn't prepared for the work either. So how did he become the master of words that we read here? "Fever or forgotten wings"? "Deciphering that fire"? All we know is that the heavens "unfastened" and opened, and he saw that small and limited as he was, he was a part of the infinite mystery, had a place in the great wonder, and his heart "broke loose". (I've been thinking about what it means to have one's heart break loose. Is it that it breaks free of "me"? That I leave self-centeredness for my true center?) It's clear that Neruda considers poetry a calling, and this comforts me. Poetry is hard to account for. Poets don't get much respect, or at least not the right kind of respect (that of being useful and necessary in everyday people's lives), they would need a good reason to do the work at all, if you ask me - a reason like Neruda's - "I was summoned",  and like Moses' - "God gave me these words."