rainstick

I'm sitting next to a window working, but I wanted to write that the sleet falling outside hitting the metal screen and the roof next door sounds like a giant rainstick.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I read this today for the first time:
"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."
I love this!

It reminds me of another Neruda morsel I have written in my room:
Eres para mi suculenta | You are for me succulent
como una panaderia | like a bakery.             

Here's the full poem including the title quote:

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

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 6

De pie C.R. NO AL TLC

On your feet, CR, no to the TLC

On a statue near La Sabana park in San Jose

Slow.

photo series: costa rican graffiti, part 5

i really like the colors in this picture:
"el gobierno hace a los ricos mas ricos y a los pobres mas pobres."
english: the government makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
(also all of the 'a's are anarchy symbols)

here's another one. i like the placement, someone rising up and shouting.
in the buffalo winter, i miss all the tropical plants, too.

mentira lo que dice | what's said is a lie
mentira lo que da | what's given is a lie
mentira lo que hace | what's done is a lie
mentira lo que va | what happens is a lie
. . .
todo es mentira en este mundo | everything is this world is a lie

just now i'm listing to manu chao's mentira (song). here are the lyrics. this doesn't include the news-like clips at the end that speak of the US emitting a quarter of the world's greenhouse gasses and not taking any action (like kyoto) to stop it. i don't understand the world we live in, nor the country i was born into.