Part of the morning writing routine, off and on, has been doodling and drawing random pictures--sort of before my brain is really working. This one seems to express some urgency about sloth--and was drawn on some Saturday in recent years. Tracy found it serving as a bookmark. This leap-into-inaction drawing reminded me of this poem by Pablo Neruda:
Ode to Laziness
would not get off the floor.
It was time, I ought
at least
show a green leaf.
I scratch the earth: “Arise,
sister ode
—said to her—
I have promised you,
do not be afraid of me,
I am not going to crush you,
four-leaf ode,
four-hand ode,
you shall have tea with me.
Arise,
I am going to crown you among the odes,
we shall go out together along the shores
of the sea, on a bicycle.”
It was no use.
Then,
on the pine peaks,
laziness
appeared in the nude,
she led me dazzled
and sleepy,
she showed me upon the sand
small broken bits
of ocean substance,
wood, algae, pebbles,
feathers of sea birds.
I looked for but did not find
yellow agates.
The sea
filled all spaces
crumbling towers,
invading
successive catastrophes of the foam.
Alone on the sand
spread wide
its corolla.
I saw the silvery petrels crossing
and like black creases
the cormorants
nailed to the rocks.
I released a bee
that was agonizing in a spider’s nest.
I put a little pebble
in my pocket,
it was smooth, very smooth
as the breast of a bird,
meanwhile on the shore,
all afternoon
sun struggled with mist.
At times
the mist was steeped
in thought,
topaz-like,
at others fell
a ray from the moist sun
distilling yellow drops.
At night,
thinking of the duties of my fugitive ode,
I pull off my shoes
near the fire;
sand slid out of them
and soon I began to fall
asleep.
