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Ode to the Book by Pablo Neruda   
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Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973 / Parral / Chile)
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Pablo Neruda was born in Parral, Chile. He studied in Santiago in the twenties. From 1927 to 1945 he was the Chilean consul in Rangoon, in Java, and t .. more >>
61 poems of Pablo Neruda
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  Ode to the Book

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6.3 /10
(20 votes)



  When I close a book
I open life.
I hear
faltering cries
among harbours.
Copper ignots
slide down sand-pits
to Tocopilla.
Night time.
Among the islands
our ocean
throbs with fish,
touches the feet, the thighs,
the chalk ribs
of my country.
The whole of night
clings to its shores, by dawn
it wakes up singing
as if it had excited a guitar.

The ocean's surge is calling.
The wind
calls me
and Rodriguez calls,
and Jose Antonio--
I got a telegram
from the "Mine" Union
and the one I love
(whose name I won't let out)
expects me in Bucalemu.

No book has been able
to wrap me in paper,
to fill me up
with typography,
with heavenly imprints
or was ever able
to bind my eyes,
I come out of books to people orchards
with the hoarse family of my song,
to work the burning metals
or to eat smoked beef
by mountain firesides.
I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile
and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems--
they devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I have lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.

Pablo Neruda


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Read poems about / on: guitar, ocean, weather, fish, song, family, food, hate, snow, kiss, work, people, wind, ode, night, sky, life, love, fishing, poem

 
  Comments about this poem (Ode to the Book by Pablo Neruda )
Click here to write your comments about this poem (Ode to the Book by Pablo Neruda )
 
  John Tiong Chunghoo  (7/4/2006 5:54:00 AM)

pablo, this is very good. i could really feel the action behind all your words. your thoughts and the keenness to live life to the full. books should not wrap you up. should should be freeing you and the mind. kindest regares, johd
 
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