Wednesday 25 January 2023

Cycling Poetry for Burns Night - Ode to Bicycles

The bicycle: "The cold skeleton that will return to life" when I ride it through Santiago, Chile

It's that time again when we gather around a fire, sing Scottish folk songs, maybe add in a bit of dancing, eat haggis and read a bit of poetry all in the name of Rabbie Burns. Well actually the only thing I do regularly on January 25th is the last one. So in my continuing tradition here's a cycling poem that I particularly like. 

It has probably appeared on this blog in the past, but I wanted to mention it again, not just because I like it, but also because it is by one of Chile's most famous poets, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). I was in Chile around this time five years ago as part of a mini tour in South America. I tried to visit the Pablo Neruda Museum in Valparaiso, but it was closed.

While in Santiago I hired a bike and toured around the city. It was a pity that I was pushed for time, but what I saw of the Chilean capital was very pleasant. So I hope to return there and spend a more time one day in the not too distant future.


Ode to Bicycles by Pablo Neruda

I was walking
down
a sizzling road:
the sun popped like
a field of blazing maize,
the
earth
was hot,
an infinite circle
with an empty
blue sky overhead.

A few bicycles
passed
me by,
the only
insects
in
that dry
moment of summer,
silent,
swift,
translucent;
they
barely stirred
the air.

Workers and girls
were riding to their
factories,
giving
their eyes
to summer,
their heads to the sky,
sitting on the
hard
beetle backs
of the whirling
bicycles
that whirred
as they rode by
bridges, rosebushes, brambles
and midday.

I thought about evening when
the boys
wash up,
sing, eat, raise
a cup
of wine
in honor
of love
and life,
and waiting
at the door,
the bicycle,
stilled,
because
only moving
does it have a soul,
and fallen there
it isn’t
a translucent insect
humming
through summer
but
a cold
skeleton
that will return to
life
only
when it’s needed,
when it’s light,
that is,
with
the
resurrection
of each day.

Bicycles: "The only insects in that dry moment of Summer" while I was in Vina del Mar, Chile

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