A Companion Poem

Ode to Clothing
By Pablo Neruda

Each morning you’re waiting
My clothing, on a chair
For me to fill you
With my vanity, my love
My hope, my body
I hardly
Have gotten out of sleep
I say goodbye to the water
I enter into your sleeves
My legs look for
The hollowness of your legs
And so embraced
By your tireless faithfulness
I go out to walk in the grass
I enter into poetry
I look through windows
At things
Men, women,
Deeds and struggles
Keep forming me
Keep coming against me
Laboring with my hands
Opening my eyes
Using up my mouth
And so,
Clothing,
I also keep forming you
Poking out your elbows
Snapping your threads
And so your life grows
Into the image of my life.
In the wind
You ripple and rustle
As if you were my soul.
In bad minutes
You stick
To my bones
Empty, through the night
Darkness, sleep
Populate with their fantasies
Your wings and mine.
I ask
If one day
A bullet
From the enemy
Might leave a spot of my blood on you
And then
You would die with me
Or maybe
It won’t all be
So dramatic
But simple
And you’ll just get feeble,
Clothing,
Growing old
With me, with my body
And together
We will enter
The earth.
That’s why
Every day
I greet you
With reverence and then
You embrace me and I forget you
Because we are just one
And we’ll keep going on together
Against the wind, in the night
The streets, or the struggle
One single body
May be, may be, some time will be immobile.

Companion Poem to Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Clothing
By Paige Castle

Every morning I countdown the seconds,
As I sit on your chair,
Until you will slip me on
Covering me with your conceit, your passion
Your beliefs, your body
Your eyes are still droopy
Sleep still runs through you
You leave the shower
And give my bodiless structure a body
Your legs explore
The vacancy of mine
I hug the flesh of your legs
With endless fidelity
The fresh green life greets you
You penetrate the wall between your life and poetry’s
Your eyes scan through the glass
Absorbing everything
Males and females
Feats and frays
Mold you
Battle against you
Forcing your hands to continuously move
Bringing sight to your blinded eyes
Pouring over your lips
While I,
A bodiless mass,
Take part of your shape
Your arms solidify mine
My threads break in surprise
For my configuration adapts
To you.
Earth whistles
Proving my fluidity
Like the spirit of you.
I feel so a part of you
That sometimes I latch myself to your core
A crepuscule brings bareness
Twilight, unconsciousness
Roost their delusions
Upon you and me.
You give birth to a question
Maybe
Ammo
Will exit the envious gun
Staining me with your existence
And at that moment
We both perish
Perhaps
Death will not be complex or extraordinary
Only normal
My structure will become delicate
Fragile
I slowly deteriorate
Along with you
Hand in hand
Both of us are decomposed
Becoming the soil
This is the reason why
Every time the sun rises
Your acknowledgment towards me
Is coupled with adoration
With that I cling to your shape
And our identities form one
For the rest of our lives, we stick together
Battling earth’s whistles, the crepuscule,
The roads, or the conflict
Only one identity
Possibly, possibly, some time will be anchored.