Skip to main content

Blue Hour 5 of 6

8:45 pm

In my sky at twilight you are a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.

The lamp of my soul dyes your feet.
My sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!

You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depths of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.

You are taken in the net of my music, my love,
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins.

~ Pablo Neruda

Comments

  1. A little bit of sunlight trying to stay alive.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I knew I would love this series, it's beautiful!

    Regarding your question:
    Pillories were used for punishment and public humiliation and every portuguese town has one on its main square but that practice was abolished in the 18th century. The pillory of Oeiras was the last to be erected in the country, as others, emblem and symbol of municipal autonomy, achieved in 1759 with the creation of village and county.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like Neruda, too. I once worked in the admin of a K-12 school and the English Master gave me a copy of a CD he used with his HSC students of the poetry of Neruda.

    Look at that line 'The lamp of my soul dyes your feet'. How wonderful to write something like that.

    Am I meant to be commenting on the photo ...

    ReplyDelete
  4. JM. I loved preparing this series. After the shock of discovering the lake so deserted I realised quite quickly that the evening like was just magic.

    Julie, hee hee I KNEW you would comment on the poems. I bought a whole thick volume of Neruda some time ago but last year turned out so busy I haven't had time to savour it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coolibah?

Is that a Coolibah tree beside the abandoned house? Every Australian knows about Coolibah trees because the bush ballad Waltzing Matilda is nigh on our unoffical national anthem but most of us live nowhere near the inland where they grow. Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, Under the shade of a Coolibah tree, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me. Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.

The end

I retire from the workforce this week and to celebrate have decided to retire my current blogs and start afresh with a single consolidated blog -  My Bright Field  - to record the delights of my new life adventure. If you are interested follow me over there.  I will still be Sweet Wayfaring and collecting Royal Hotels.  The delights I discover along the way will appear together with my gardens and towns where I live.

Brown streams and soft dim skies

I gave my husband a thick book on the history of Australian Art for Christmas. It documents just how long it took the artists to paint what they actually saw -- at the hands of early artists our wild Australian landscapes looked like rolling green English countryside. Today's photo has "that look" so I have referenced words from the poem describing England. It was Christmas Eve. We were camped by the Tumut River in the Snowy Mountains of NSW. A shady spot planted with exotic trees from the "old world" and with the soft burble of a swiftly flowing stream. Bliss after a hot afternoon drive. But the old world dies slowly, a hot roast for Christmas dinner followed by plum pudding is one of those traditions that just won't die. Knowing we were going to be on the move on Christmas Day we settled for having our traditional hot meal on Christmas Eve this year.