Morning XXVII
Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
you have moon-lines, apple-pathways:
naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.
Naked, you are blue as a night in Cuba;
you have vines and stars in your hair;
naked you are spacious and yellow
as summer in a golden church.
Naked, you are tiny as one of your nails -
curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
and you withdraw to the underground world,
as if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
your clear light dims, gets dressed - drops its leaves -
and becomes a naked hand again.
Commentary
Guet poem sent in by singh_abs2000
What can be said about what cannot be said…that Neruda could say it?
For me this poem captures all the beauty and painful longing of mortal love…while reading this poem I realized that this poem could equally be a lover talking of his love lying next to him…or a mother talking of her own nakedness suckling at her breasts…
Needless to say my favorite line of all times is in here…
"you have moon-lines, apple-pathways;
Naked, you are as slender as a naked grain of wheat"
But more than all this there is something unspeakably sacred in these words. I cant point my fingers at it…it sweeps you when you come face to face with this poem.
P.S. I have noticed that there are very few Nerudas in the collection…so I hope this poem opens a new gateway to more Neruda discoveries! [actually, eight poems isn’t all that few, considering. more would, of course, always be nice :) - martin]