Summer Reading: Pablo Neruda

FRED RYAN
Aylmer, Quebec

Summer reading: Pablo Neruda

When I was supposed to be raising sheep
I was reading Pablo Neruda.
Now I am producing newspapers
And still reading Pablo Neruda.
Staring into a fire, is what it's like,
This Neruda, a stick to humanity's flames
And the grit of its unions, the feelings
That fly like fish across the surface of its great sea,
This is his language, the freshness
Of wind from the ocean, his images
Plus the gulls, seashells, the rocks
Cutting the coast, dissecting the very waves
Whence we came
Into its founding metaphors.
How sea-like
This Pablo Neruda, this deep-water poet,
This king of its retreating foam.

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