Pablo Neruda: “Oh Earth, Wait for Me”

by John Hamilton Farr on May 30, 2009 · 1 comment

in Spirit

It’s been pretty busy around here of late, which is why I haven’t been posting very much. But someone I know sent me the following Pablo Neruda poem, which very much reflects my own sensibility at the moment, so I’d like to share it with you.

Oh Earth, Wait for Me

Return me, oh sun,
to my wild destiny,
rain of the ancient wood,
bring me back the aroma and the swords
that fall from the sky,
the solitary peace of pasture and rock,
the damp at the river-margins,
the smell of the larch tree,
the wind alive like a heart
beating in the crowded restlessness
of the towering araucaria.

Earth, give me back your pure gifts,
the towers of silence which rose
from the solemnity of their roots.
I want to go back to being what I have not been,
and learn to go back from such deeps
that amongst all natural things
I could live or not live; it does not matter
to be one stone more, the dark stone,
the pure stone which the river bears away.

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dar June 2, 2009 at 12:11 pm

Check this out,prof John:
A Sublime, Deeply Poignant Collaboration Reflects the Love Story Between Two Astonishing Artists, January 4, 2007 By Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
This review is from: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Peter Lieberson ‘Neruda Songs’ (Audio CD)
It is impossible not to be moved by this wondrous recording by the estimable mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who passed away much too soon at age 52 last year. Possessing one of the most vividly lustrous and naturally radiant voices, she peaked at a later age than most of her fellow singers, allowing her the time and experience to build greater depth and texture into her exquisite interpretations. ..
With this posthumous release, we are fortunate to have a recording of her November 2005 performance in Boston’s Symphony Hall under the baton of James Levine. Running scarcely over half an hour, the disc is all too brief, but the emotionalism is pungent with every movement.
Impressed deeply by several love sonnets written by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, her husband Peter, the composer son of ballerina Vera Zorina and longtime Columbia Records CEO Goddard Lieberson, wrote lush musical settings for five of them. Each poem reveals a facet of love distinctive in its pronouncement as the succession of pieces moves from openly rapturous to inevitable grief at separation. One cannot help but draw parallels between the emotional arc of the compositions and Hunt Lieberson’s long-running bout with cancer and her pending fate.

When one hears the unadorned joy in her voice in the first poem, “If your eyes were not the color of the moon”, the intractable bond between composer and performer is palpable. The third poem, “Don’t go far off, not even for a day” reflects an artist with an innate and highly plangent sense of her brief time on earth. However, it is the fifth poem, “My love, if I die and you don’t”, which really tugs most at the heartstrings as she sings of the eternal fate of true love in spite of any earthbound limitations a couple will face. The most sublime moment comes when she repeats the word “amor” at the end with a dream-like, faraway tone. This is magnificent, transcendent work from a singer for the ages and a composer whose enduring love for his wife has inspired his most profound work.
http://www.amazon.com/Sings-Peter-Lieberson-Neruda-Songs/dp/B0012ELMRS

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=%27Neruda+Songs&aq=f

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