Here I Love You by Pablo Neruda (read by Tom O’Bedlam)

Neruda is a popular poet. That isn’t necessarily a compliment. Popular art tends to be pleasing but superficial - easy to understand but not deep. It makes you say “that’s just what I’ve always thought and felt“. Some lines of this poem have little meaning beyond the pleasing sound they make. “My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.“ Nietzsche said, “Poets are unclean; they muddy their waters to make them appear deep.“ Suspicious, I used Google to translate “Mi hastío forcejea con los lentos crepúsculos.“ and got “My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.“ Google’s machine translation of the whole poem looks like this one. It’s likely that some shades of meaning were lost in translation. Great art makes a great impact, it takes you aback, it shakes you up and persists in you forever, changing the way you think and feel. There’s a sameness in Neruda’s poems. His style is Imagist - meaning a succession of strong images drawn usually from nature, the sea or city life - and the images complement feelings of lost love, absence, longing and regret . He found a formula and stuck with it. There’s nothing wrong with that: it you want to be a commercial artist, that’s the way to do it. You can tell how intelligent people are by what they are interested in. Less intelligent people tend to be more “spiritual“, preoccupied with things that have a wide scope but no conclusions, supported by beliefs that can’t be proved wrong. They are likely to be followers of some “wise man“, their argument being “I may be stupid and ignorant, but I know I’m in the right because this is what the Guru tells me“. More intelligent people tend to be more “scientific“, preoccupied with matters that have definite answers. They form their own opinions: it’s risky to offer opinions that can be disputed. A proposition is only scientific if it is capable of being disproved. Newton’s propositions were eventually disproved by Einstein: the difference is profound on a cosmic scale but for everyday purposes we still use Newton’s laws. Intelligence is a provocative yardstick. The public is so sensitive about it they have to be protected. In fiction, the Super-Hero is portrayed as good rather than clever, but he invariably defeats the Super-Villain who is evil but a genius. Do people need to be reassured that determination will compensate for lack of intelligence? It’s ain’t so. Are they afraid of clever people? There’s no reason why they should be. Clever people make their lives easier and provide them with benefits. Stupid people are far more dangerous. In real life, evil people aren’t smart and Super-Heroes are geniuses. People who are uncommonly intelligent tend to be more benefit to the rest of us, but less benefit to themselves. They sometimes get rich from selling us the benefits they have created. Intelligent people also tend to suffer in youth but, if they make it, have an easier time in old age. On the other hand, less intelligent people tend to have carefree youth which yields to a miserable old age. If you spend your youth despising old people, and not taking any precautions or making any provisions for the future, then you won’t enjoy growing old and your life will get steadily worse. Is great intelligence A Good Thing? Not for the person who has it - to them it’s just a thing, an affliction. It creates difficulties more often than solutions. Their main problem is being misunderstood. Is being tall A Good Thing? Most men would say so. Yet the healthiest old men with the best chance of living to be 100 live in Okinawa. These fit old guys have an average height of 4’10“. Various paintings by Winslow Homer (1836-1910) including Moonlight, and Eastern Point Light Clockwork moon by James Peck Pines Here I love you. In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself. The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters. Days, all one kind, go chasing each other. The snow unfurls in dancing figures. A silver gull slips down from the west. Sometimes a sail. High, high stars. Oh the black cross of a ship. Alone. Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet. Far away the sea sounds and resounds. This is a port. Here I love you. Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain. I love you still among these cold things. Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels that cross the sea towards no arrival. I see myself forgotten like those old anchors. The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there. My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose. I love what I do not have. You are so far. My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights. But night comes and starts to sing to me. The moon turns its clockwork dream. The biggest stars look at me with your eyes. And as I love you, the pines in the wind want to sing your name with their leaves of wire. .