Monday
As I am writing this on Easter, I want to steer clear, if only for a day, of the continuing COVID-19 horror. Therefore, I turn to an uplifting Pablo Neruda poem where he imagines the entire world pausing. How would it be, he wonders, if, for an “exotic moment,” we all decided to be quiet together.
Perhaps, he speculates, a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves
with death.Perhaps, he says in what could be seen as an Easter message,
the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.
Tomorrow I’ll return to our sin-filled world and apply Dante’s Inferno to the political misbehavior we are witnessing in the face of the virus. I remind myself, however, that Inferno is set during passion week and culminates on Easter Sunday. After encountering the word (Satan) in the poem’s last canto, Dante begins his climb to Purgatory and Paradise. Today I focus on that upward movement toward hope.
In spring the earth teaches us that what appeared to be dead proves to be alive.
Keeping Quiet
By Pablo Neruda
Trans. Alastair Reid
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves
with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.