Saturday, October 13, 2018

"October is on its way."

Ode to some yellow flowers

Rolling its blues against another blue,
the sea, and against the sky
some yellow flowers.

October is on its way.*

And although
the sea may well be important, with its unfolding
myths, its purpose and its risings,
when the gold of a single
yellow plant
explodes
in the sand
your eyes
are bound
to the soil.
They flee the wide sea and its heavings.

We are dust and to dust return.
In the end we're
neither air, nor fire, nor water,
just
dirt,
neither more nor less, just dirt,
and maybe
some yellow flowers.


Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)

found in Neruda's Odes to Common Things
translated by Ken Krabbenhoft; Bulfinch Press, 1994
(other ~ translations)

For more by Neruda and others,
see my Fortnightly post: Yellow Gold Guayacan

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