{"id":5904,"date":"2017-10-06T09:05:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T16:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=5904"},"modified":"2017-10-06T09:05:03","modified_gmt":"2017-10-06T16:05:03","slug":"pablo-neruda-keeping-quiet-and-thoughts-on-the-las-vegas-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/06\/pablo-neruda-keeping-quiet-and-thoughts-on-the-las-vegas-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"Pablo Neruda – Keeping Quiet (and thoughts on the Las Vegas shooting)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keeping Quiet
\nby Pablo Neruda<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Alastair Reid<\/font><\/p>\n

Now we will count to twelve
\nand we will all keep still.<\/p>\n

For once on the face of the earth
\nlet\u2019s not speak in any language,
\nlet\u2019s stop for one second,
\nand not move our arms so much.<\/p>\n

It would be an exotic moment
\nwithout rush, without engines,
\nwe would all be together
\nin a sudden strangeness.<\/p>\n

Fishermen in the cold sea
\nwould not harm whales
\nand the man gathering salt
\nwould look at his hurt hands.<\/p>\n

Those who prepare green wars,
\nwars with gas, wars with fire,
\nvictory with no survivors,
\nwould put on clean clothes
\nand walk about with their brothers
\nin the shade, doing nothing. <\/p>\n

What I want should not be confused
\nwith total inactivity.
\nLife is what it is about;
\nI want no truck with death.<\/p>\n

If we were not so single-minded
\nabout keeping our lives moving,
\nand for once could do nothing,
\nperhaps a huge silence
\nmight interrupt this sadness
\nof never understanding ourselves
\nand of threatening ourselves with death.
\nPerhaps the earth can teach us
\nas when everything seems dead
\nand later proves to be alive.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ll count up to twelve
\nand you keep quiet and I will go.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from Extravagaria: A Bilingual Edition<\/a>, Translated by Alastair Reid<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Maks Karochkin<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

I live in Colorado, a state with lots of guns. Most of those guns are used in hunting and kept locked away and out of sight. But I have had the distinctly frightening experience of seeing someone walk into a local grocery store with a handgun strapped to his hip. This was not a police officer, not someone in uniform, but a \u201cgun activist\u201d asserting his \u201cright\u201d to walk around in public spaces with a weapon. When we later contacted the store manager to insist that they publicly declare themselves to be a weapons-free safe zone (as other stores have done in the state), the manager responded that the man was not breaking the law by openly carrying a gun into the store.<\/p>\n

Another time, I found myself in the surreal position of holding a friend\u2019s (unloaded) M-16 rifle while being told how simple it would be to convert it from semi-automatic to fully automatic, all while surrounded by several other rifles, handguns, and knives.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what to make of this aspect of American culture. There is this sense that manhood is marked by the hard embrace of violence and death. And when that manhood is thwarted in its other social expressions, it then acts out through that violence and death. In that person\u2019s dark moment, Lord help the society that makes these weapons of instant death and mass murder easily available.<\/p>\n

Obviously, I have been meditating on this latest mass shooting in the United States, along with the fact that we seem to be getting used to this pattern in recent years. There is a certain comfortable insanity that is taking the place of problem solving in this country. <\/p>\n

We accept shooting after shooting, rather than face difficult questions of gun control, underfunded mental health care, widespread economic desperation, re-emerging racism, and an increasingly dangerous cultural divide. Not all of those issues necessarily apply to the recent Las Vegas shooting, but they all add to the pressure cooker that keeps producing these terrible events.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t need to \u201cput our differences aside and come together as a nation.\u201d Those differences are there. We need to be honest about it. We need to be honest with ourselves. We need to look at the full picture, look at it honestly. And then we need to engage in real conversation, uncomfortable conversation. Only then can we begin to formulate practical measures of responsibility and prevention, rather than after-the-fact prayer. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what we need.<\/p>\n

Now we will count to twelve
\nand we will all keep still.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2026nine\u2026ten\u2026eleven\u2026<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Pablo Neruda<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Book of Questions<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nNeruda: Selected Poems<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nOn the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nPablo Neruda: Selected Poems<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nExtravagaria: A Bilingual Edition<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Pablo<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nPablo Neruda<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Chile (1904 \u2013 1973) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

More poetry by Pablo Neruda<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda English version by Alastair Reid Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth let\u2019s not speak in any language, let\u2019s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,3,1],"tags":[2119,595],"class_list":["post-5904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ivans-story","category-poetry","category-uncategorized","tag-las-vegas-shooting","tag-pablo-neruda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5905,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5904\/revisions\/5905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}