I first read this poem when I had just stepped into my teens. We had Pablo Neruda in our course, though a different poem and it was random. I was reading about him and this poem seemed to crop up almost everywhere. I just couldn't ignore it and what opened up when I clicked, was perhaps the best love poem ever written. But of course, I am no authority for I've hardly read a percent of what's been written, so let me put it this way. This poem became my favourite love-poem then and there and has continued to remain so for I've never found a better to replace it. Though I admit this, it had begun to fade in the mill of the my daily humdrum. It was yesterday, that it suddenly came to me again. We had a movie screening, that of a Bengali film called Sthaniyo Sambad. It was sudden. The conservative young boy sees these magazines full of half-nude women and criticizes them. His liberal mentor just quotes Neruda,
"I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."
Saying that the society was more liberal is not entirely true and yet, somewhere, the youth of those times was inclined towards change. There was greater freedom. And greater strength in the minds. I wish today's youth could draw inspiration from them!
For all those who haven't read the poem, here's a piece of literature that seduces through words. And I bet you won't mind this absolutely sensuous seduction!
Every Day You Play
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.
You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.
The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.
You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.
How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
--Pablo Neruda
