Ode to the Book - Neruda

By far, my favorite poem remains: Ode to the Book. I have loved this poem for years and will always admire it. Hopefully, it will continue to strengthen my ever present desire to find, "Life within life itself," and not merely from the experiences and words of others...

Also, the image above is from the Colchagua Valley in Chile, the same country that Neruda called home and beautifully painted throughout his poetry.

Excerpt from:
Ode to the Book
by Pablo Neruda

When I close a book
I open life...

No book has been able
to wrap me in paper,
to fill me up
with typography,
with heavenly imprints
or was ever able
to bind my eyes,
I come out of books to people orchards
with the hoarse family of my song,
to work the burning metals
or to eat smoked beef
by mountain firesides.
I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile
and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems--
they devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.