Odes to Common Things

We've been trying to read a bit of poetry everyday from the famous and brilliant Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. His Odes to Common Things, is a beautiful piece of work. After arriving in Linares and eating tomatoes every meal with my host-family, I have grown more in love with his words and this specific poem: Ode to Tomatoes

The street 
filled with tomatoes 
midday, 
 summer, 
 light is
 halved 
like
 a
 tomato, 
 its juice 
runs
 through the streets. 
 In December, 
 unabated, 
 the tomato 
invades 
the kitchen, 
 it enters at lunch time, 
takes
 its ease 
on countertops, 
 among glasses, 
 butter dishes, 
 blue salt cellars. 
 It sheds 
its own light, 
 benign majesty. 
 Unfortunately, we must 
murder it: 
the knife
 sinks
 into living flesh, 
 red
 viscera, 
 a cool
 sun, 
 profound, 
 inexhaustible, 
 populates the salads
 of Chile, 
 happily, it is wed
 to the clear onion, 
and to celebrate the union 
we 
pour
 oil, 
 essential
 child of the olive, 
 onto its halved hemispheres, 
 pepper adds its fragrance, 
 salt, its magnetism; it is the wedding of the day, parsley hoists its flag, potatoes bubble vigorously, the aroma of the roast knocks 
at the door, it’s time! come on! and, on 
the table, at the midpoint of summer, the tomato, star of earth, recurrent and fertile star, displays its convolutions, its canals, its remarkable amplitude and abundance, no pit, no husk, no leaves or thorns, the tomato offers its gift of fiery color and cool completeness.