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Ode to Olive Oil / Oda al Aceite | Poem by Pablo Neruda

 
Oda al Aceite por Pablo Neruda

Cerca del rumoroso
Cereal, de las olas
Del viento en las avenas
El olivo
De volumen plateado
Severo en su linaje
En su torcido
Corazón terrestre:
Las Gráciles
Olivas
Pulidas
Por los dedos
Que hicieron
La paloma
Y el caracol
Marino:
Verdes,
Inumerables,
Purísimas
Pezones
De la naturaleza,
Y allí
En
Los secos
Olivares
Donde
Tan solo
Cielo azul con cigarras
Y tierra dura
Existen
Allí
El prodigio
La cápsula
Perfecta
De la oliva
Llenando
Con sus constelaciones el foliaje
Más tarde
Las vasijas,
El milagro,
El aceite.
Yo amo
Las patrias del aceite
Los olivares
De Chaeabuco, en Chile
En la mañana
Las plumas de platino
Forestales
Contra las arrugadas
Cordilleras.
En Anacapri, arriba,
Sobre la luz tirrena
La desesperación de los olivos
Y en la mapa de Europa
España
Cesta negra de aceitunas
Espolvoreada por los azahares
Como por una ráfaga marina
Aceite
Recóndita y suprema
Condición de la olla
Pedestal de perdices
Llave celeste de la mayonesa
Suave y sabroso
Sobre las lechugas
Y sobrenatural en el infierno
De los arzo bispales pejerreyes
Nuestro coro
Con
Intima
Suavidad poderosa
Cantas:
Eres idioma
Castellano
Hay sílabas de aceite
Hay palabras
Útiles y olorosas
Como tu fragrante material.
No solo canta el vino
También canta el aceite
Vive en nosotros con su luz madura
Y entre los bienes de la tierra
Aparto
Aceite,
Tu inagotable paz, tu esencia verde
Tu colmado tesoro que desciende
Desde los manantiales del olivo.

Ode to Olive Oil by Pablo Neruda

Near the murmuring
In the grain fields, of the waves
Of wind in the oat-stalks
The olive tree
With its silver-covered mass
Severe in its lines
In its twisted
Heart in the earth:
The graceful
Olives
Polished
By the hands
Which made
The dove
And the oceanic
Snail:
Green,
Inumerable,
Immaculate
Nipples
Of nature
And there
In
The dry
Olive Groves
Where
Alone
The blue sky with cicadas
And the hard earth
Exist
There
The prodigy
The perfect
Capsules
Of the olives
Filling
With their constellations, the foliage
Then later,
The bowls,
The miracle,
The olive oil.
I love
The homelands of olive oil
The olive groves
Of Chacabuco, in Chile
In the morning
Feathers of platinum
Forests of them
Against the wrinkled
Mountain ranges.
In Anacapri, up above,
Over the light of the Italian sea
Is the despair of olive trees
And on the map of Europe
Spain
A black basketfull of olives
Dusted off by orange blossoms
As if by a sea breeze
Olive oil,
The internal supreme
Condition for the cooking pot
Pedestal for game birds
Heavenly key to mayonaise
Smoothe and tasty
Over the lettuce
And supernatural in the hell
Of the king mackerals like archbishops
Our chorus
With
Intimate
Powerful smoothness
You sing:
You are the Spanish
Laguage
There are syllables of olive oil
There are words
Useful and rich-smelling
Like your fragrant material
It's not only wine that sings
Olive oil sings too
It lives in us with its ripe light
And among the good things of the earth
I set apart
Olive oil,
Your ever-flowing peace, your green essence
Your heaped-up treasure which descends
In streams from the olive tree.

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Other Jodey Bateman translations of Pablo Neruda:
I'll Explain Some Things
Soneto LXXIII
What Spain Was Like
An Ode For Ironing
Beasts
Ode to a Woman Gardening
Ode To Bird Watching
Ode to Broken Things
Ode to Clothing / Oda al Traje
Ode to Olive Oil / Oda al Aceite
Ode to Some Yellow Flowers
Ode to the Artichoke
Ode to the Dictionary
Ode to the Lemon
Ode to the Piano
Ode to the Smell of Wood
Opium In The East (excerpt)
Poem Twenty
GAUTAMA CHRIST
For Everybody
From the Heights of Maccho Picchu
Poems by Pablo Neruda, Pulitizer Prize winner
Statues
Status Report
The Arrival in Madrid
The Heavenly Poets
The Old Women of the Ocean
The Turtle
To Sit Down
To the Foot From Its Child
Triangles