Library Lovin

While watching one of my favorite episodes, Bad Timing, from my favorite show Girlfriends, I was introduced to Pablo Neruda.

In this episode Joan has to decide between Sean, the man who "may be the one" and Davis, all on V Day!

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Pablo Neruda is described as one of the greatest poets of all time. However, it was not until I watched this episode for the umpteenth time that I actually paid attention and decided to learn more about the great poet.

From then, I had to read and learn more. Thus, after reading some of his love sonnets, all inspired by his wife, I searched the Internet looking for copies of his literature. However, because I remembered that there was an independent bookstore right next to where I worked, Amaranth Books, I decided to go there in support of the business and for a better deal J.  I had wanted to go in since passing by for the past 3 weeks and now I really had a reason to.

While I did not find exactly what I was looking for, Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets, I did find a book entitled The Essential Neruda Selected Poems. It was not until after I checked out that I then remembered how I wanted Black Skin, White Masks. So I went and searched for that within the African American section. That then led me to The Souls of Black Folk and Images in Black: 150 Years of Black Collectibles. It was some good Library Lovin. In the meantime, I must get trough Race Matters and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, from last summer, and The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism.

I share with you 2 sonnets that I have come to Love thus far:

  Sonnet XVII

  I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz

  or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

  I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

  in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

  I love you as the plant that never blooms

  but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

  thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

  risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

  I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

  I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

  So I love you because I know no other way

  than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

  so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

  so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

  Sonnet XI

  I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

  Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.

  Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day

I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

 
your hands the color of a savage harvest,


hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, 


I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

 
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,


the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,


I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,


and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, 
hunting for you,

for your hot heart,

 
Like a puma in the barrens of Q