{"id":2589,"date":"2018-03-02T00:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T05:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2589"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:45:39","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:45:39","slug":"march-2-pablo-neruda-keeping-quiet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2018\/03\/02\/march-2-pablo-neruda-keeping-quiet\/","title":{"rendered":"March 2 &#8212; Pablo Neruda &#8212; &#8220;Keeping Quiet&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, March 2<br \/>\n\u201cperhaps a huge silence<br \/>\nmight interrupt this sadness<br \/>\nof never understanding ourselves\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mary Ann and I have been soul friends since the mid-1970s in Philly. \u00a0Our lives do not offer us many blessings of face time but we have traveled the world with our mutual stories, sometimes pictures, sometimes poems. \u00a0She wrote me early this week, a story taking me with her across 3 continents. \u00a0 Somewhere among the stories she placed a poem by a Pablo Neruda, long-loved by both of us. \u00a0I\u2019ve tasted \u201cKeeping Quiet\u201d a few times already. \u00a0 Now I will pass it along to the c. 2500 readers of this list. \u00a0Two gifts here from me: \u00a0some hints of Mary Ann over decades of my life and\u00a0the power of Neruda\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n<p>Our pretty magical fluff snow of yesterday is still here though\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/Weather.com\">Weather.com<\/a>\u00a0predicts sun and some melt this afternoon.\u00a0 I know I often encourage reading out loud with pauses; Neruda will reward that too. \u00a0 Have a blest weekend.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/p>\n<p><strong>Today\u2019s Post \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cKeeping Quiet\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now we will count to twelve<br \/>\nand we will all keep still<br \/>\nfor once on the face of the earth,<br \/>\nlet&#8217;s not speak in any language;<br \/>\nlet&#8217;s stop for a second,<br \/>\nand not move our arms so much.<br \/>\nIt would be an exotic moment<br \/>\nwithout rush, without engines;<br \/>\nwe would all be together<br \/>\nin a sudden strangeness.<br \/>\nFishermen in the cold sea<br \/>\nwould not harm whales<br \/>\nand the man gathering salt<br \/>\nwould not look at his hurt hands.<br \/>\nThose who prepare green wars,<br \/>\nwars with gas, wars with fire,<br \/>\nvictories with no survivors,<br \/>\nwould put on clean clothes<br \/>\nand walk about with their brothers<br \/>\nin the shade, doing nothing.<br \/>\nWhat I want should not be confused<br \/>\nwith total inactivity.<br \/>\nLife is what it is about&#8230;<br \/>\nIf we were not so single-minded<br \/>\nabout keeping our lives moving,<br \/>\nand for once could do nothing,<br \/>\nperhaps a huge silence<br \/>\nmight interrupt this sadness<br \/>\nof never understanding ourselves<br \/>\nand of threatening ourselves with<br \/>\ndeath.<br \/>\nNow I&#8217;ll count up to twelve<br \/>\nand you keep quiet and I will go.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2590\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2018\/03\/Pablo_Neruda1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"119\" \/>\u00a0 \u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2591\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2018\/03\/Pablo_Neruda2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"168\" height=\"117\" \/><\/p>\n<p>b. July 1904 \u00a0d. September 1973<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pablo_Neruda\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pablo_Neruda<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/quantum\/books\/index.html#Extravagaria\">Extravagaria : A Bilingual Edition<\/a><br \/>\nby Pablo Neruda (Author), Alastair Reid (Translator)<br \/>\nNoonday Press; Bilingual edition (January 2001)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, March 2 \u201cperhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves\u201d Mary Ann and I have been soul friends since the mid-1970s in Philly. \u00a0Our lives do not offer us many blessings of face time but &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2018\/03\/02\/march-2-pablo-neruda-keeping-quiet\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2593,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2589\/revisions\/2593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}