Ode To Pablo Neruda And His Odas Elementales

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Don Pablo,
I've watched you
troll the lightless
trenches of grief,
an ocean-
bottom fish
all phosphorescent
lures and elastic
jaws to envelope
the swift prey
of thoughts and feelings
that swim under that
enormous gravity,
while at other times
you leap free,
prodigy of the sun,
a dolphin
on the frothy
crests of joy,
belonging
as much to air
as to water.
But
finally
I know
you're an
octopus, needing
that many limbs
to sweep
into the cavern
of your poem
the multitudinous
things of this world:
wheat, mirrors,
wristwatches, tomatoes,
blue socks, thunder
storms, dictionaries,
yellow flowers, salt,
nudes, entire cities.
Old cunning Neruda,
with your bulbous brow
packed with images
and your drooping eyes
that have squinted
for centuries
through the sea's green
ink bottle, you
pull the whole treasure-
frigate of earth
down in your maelstrom,
into your submarine
forest of odes
lit by pillars
of sunken daylight,
to sing in sorrow
and homecoming
among the bells and
carved figureheads,
calling us back,
voyage after voyage,
to irresistibly
and ecstatically
shipwreck
in the waves
of your music.