Libraries

Friday, June 4, 2010


Libraries might be some of the only sacred places we have left. My local library was renovated while I was away and today was my first time inside. It was 93 degrees today so I sat in the stacks getting lost in poetry. I've been finding it harder recently to get myself to sit down and just relax. Now that I have Internet all the time again, I don't think to read a book or just stop going going going. So today felt like a cool breath of fresh air.

Pablo Neruda is my favorite. I took out a thousand-page anthology of his poems - many with multiple translations (I wish I knew Spanish purely so I could read his work - and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's, for that matter - the way it's supposed to be read).

Oh girl among the roses, oh crush of doves,
oh fortress of fishes and rosebushes,
your soul is a bottle filled with thirsty salt
and your skin, a bell filled with grapes.

Unfortunately I have only fingernails to give you,
or eyelashes, or melted pianos,
or dreams that come spurting from my heart,
dusty dreams that run like black horsemen,
dreams filled with velocities and misfortunes.


from "Ode with a Lament"
photo via we heart it

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