Keri Marion

Today is the birthday of Chilean poet laureate, Pablo Neruda. A girlfriend sent me an e-mail today saying that she thinks of me every time she hears his name, which is a sweet thought.

Pablo Neruda is my first poetic love. My initial interest in Spanish was to be able to read his work first-hand, a feat which I still haven’t quite mastered.

The following poem, Parthenogenesis, was introduced to me at a time in my life where I was experiencing a sort of rebirth. I was 27 - an appropriate age for a rebirth, I suppose. I was at a party with Heidi at her close-friend-at-the-time’s apartment. Amongst the drunken slurs and drooling pools of beer and smoke, I found a collection of poems by Neruda. Thr book fell open to this poem. I sat in a chair by the window while the dawn competed with the streetlights to provide my reading light. The poem had a profound effect on my perspective which set in motion a chain of events that changed my life entirely.

Parthenogenesis

Day by day, all those who gave
me advice get crazier and crazier.
Luckily, I paid no attention
and they took off for some other city
where they all live together
swapping hats with each other.

They were praiseworthy types,
politically astute,
so that all my ineptitudes
caused them great suffering:
They got gray-haired and wrinkled,
couldn’t stomach their chestnuts,
and finally an autumnal depression
left them delirious.

Now I don’t know which way to be–
absent-minded or respectful;
shall I yield to advice
or tell them outright they’re hysterical?
Independence as such gets me nowhere,
I get lost in the underbrush,
I don’t know if I”m coming or going.
Shall I move on or stand pat,
buy tom-cats or tomatoes?

I’ll figure out as best I can
what I ought not to do–and then do it:
that way, I can make a good case
for the times I got lost on the way;
if I don’t make mistakes
who’ll have faith in my errors?
If I live like a savant
no one will be greatly impressed.

Well, I’ll try to change for the better:
greet them all circumspectly,
watch out for appearances,
be dedicated, enthusiastic–
till I’m just what they ordered,
being and un-being at will
till I’m totally otherwise.

Then if they let me alone,
I’ll change my whole person,
disagree with my skin,
get a new mouth,
change my shoes and my eyes–
then when I’m different
and nobody can recognize me
–since anything else is unthinkable–
I’ll go on as I was in the beginning.

–Pablo Neruda

There are other pieces by other artists that have either reinforced or changed my perspective on life’s events, but I think this one had the most profound effect.

So happy birthday, Pablo: enjoy immortality while you have it.