A Poem For Today - Enigmas/Los Enigmas

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KDick...@aol.com

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Sep 6, 2014, 2:24:14 PM9/6/14
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Enigmas

 

You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with

his golden feet?

I reply, the ocean knows this.

You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent

bell? What is it waiting for?

I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.

You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?

Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.

You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,

and I reply by describing

how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.

You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,

which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?

Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on

the crystal architecture

of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?

You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean

spines?

The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?

The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out

in the deep places like a thread in the water?

 

I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its

jewel boxes

is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,

and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the petal

hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light

and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall

from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

 

I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead

of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,

of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes

on the timid globe of an orange.

 

I walked around as you do, investigating

the endless star,

and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,

the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

 

Pablo Naruda

 

Los Enigmas

 

Me habeis preguntado que hila el crustaceo

entre sus patas de oro

y os respondo: El mar lo sabe.

Me decis, que espera la ascidia en su campana trasparente? Que espera?

Yo os digo, espera como vosotros el tiempo.

Me preguntais: a quien alcanza el abrazo del alga Macrocustis?

Indagadlo, indagadlo a cierta hora, en cierto mar que conozco.

Sin duda me preguntareis por el marfil maldito del narwhal, para que yo os conteste de que modo el unicornio marino agoniza arponeado.

Me preguntais tal vez por las plumas alcionarias que tiemblan

en los puros origenes de la marca austral?

Y sobre la construccion cristalina del polipo habeis barajado, sin duda,

una pregunta mas, desgranandola ahora?

Quereis saber la electrica materia de las puas del fondo?

La armada estalactita que camina

quebrandose?

El anzuelo del pez pescador, la musica extendida?

en la profundidad como un hilo de agua?

 

Yo os quiero decir que esto lo sabe el mar,

que la vida en sus arcas

es ancha como la arena, innumerable y pura

y entre las uvas sanguinarias el tiempo ha pulido la dureza de un petalo, la luz de la medusa y ha desgranado el ramo de sus hebras de corales desde una cornucopia de nacar infinito.

 

Yo no soy sino la red vacia que adelanta

ojos humanos, muertos en aquellas tinieblas,

dedos acostumbrados al triangulo, medidas

de un timido hemisferio de naranja.

 

Anduve como vosotros escarbando

la estrella interminable,

y en mi red, en la noche, me desperte desnudo, unica presa, pez encerrado en el viento.

 

Pablo Neruda

Trudi Richards

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Sep 6, 2014, 2:43:48 PM9/6/14
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God! - incredible poem, thanks Ken. No idea what it means, but it touches deep...
Trudi


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--
Trudi Lee Richards
ICAN - International Communities for Active Nonviolence - www.ICANchange.net
Winged Lion Press Cooperative - www.wingedlionpress.org
Oakland Community of Silo's Message - www.silosmessage.net
Oakland, California

"For my heart is tangled in thy nets;

my soul enmeshed in cataracts of time"
- Tony Hoagland


"Without fear, with open heart and mind, I give myself to my joyous Purpose and my unknown Destiny..."




johnja...@gmail.com

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Sep 6, 2014, 2:47:38 PM9/6/14
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It's lovely to read this before I go out to the ocean today, as I try to do as often as I can. I don't know how many of the enigmas here I will encounter, but, actually, I want them to remain enigmas.That is a big part of the way they remind me to my core of the mystery in which I am so blessed to participate, and which I experience so viscerally there.  

Thanks.

Jai


On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 11:24 AM, KDickinson via A Poem For Today <po...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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John "Jai" Conley
Faculty/Writing Coach, Pre-Health Professions Certificate Program (PHPCP)
San Francisco State University
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