Diane Amarotico - Matilde Urrutia - A Neruda Love Sonnet

Diane Amarotico uses Italic for English Version & Uncials for Spanish Version to Interpret Pablo Neruda's Love Sonnet to Matilde Urrutia .



Diane Amarotico "Matilde Urrutia"



I love the way Diane used both the English version written in Italic and Spanish version written in  Uncials to  share with the viewers Neruda's love poem to the love of his life.

Have you ever heard of Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto?  Trivia learning. That's the real name of Pablo Neruda who chose his alias or pen name after the Czech poet Jan Neruda.

 Pablo Neruda  the Chilean poet & a Nobel Laureate Literature winner wrote love poems to his paramour Matilde Urrutia, a singer. Before Matilde became Neruda's third wife, they had a secret affair in Santiago. The love poems to Matilde became the  "100 Love Sonnets". Neruda delayed the publication of his sonnets to spare the feelings of his second wife.
When I first read Pablo Neruda  odes to several objects , I was hooked as a Neruda fan. He wrote odes to onion, socks, tomato, dictionary and other ordinary objects, I sense his depth, rhythm, passion, sensuosness how he used words to slice the meanings into a garden of pleasures.   Neruda love poems touch the reader's heart,soul and burn the marrow of your bones. For lovers, Neruda's love poetry sizzles.

Here's the content of Diane Amarotico's piece "Matilde Urrutia" by Pablo Neruda

Matilde Urrutia, I’m leaving you here

all I had, all I didn’t have,
all I am, all I am not.
My love is a child crying,
reluctant to leave your arms,
I leave it to you forever–
you are my chosen one.

You are my chosen one,
more tempered by winds
than thin trees in the south,
a hazel in August;
for me you are as delicious
as a great bakery.
You have an earth heart
but your hands are from heaven.

You are red and spicy,
you are white and salty
like pickled onions,
you are a laughing piano
with every human note;
and music runs over me
from your eyelashes and your hair.
I wallow in your gold shadow,
I’m enchanted by your ears
as though I had seen them before
in underwater coral.
In the sea for your nails’ sake,
I took on terrifying fish . . . .

Sometime when we’ve stopped being,
stopped coming and going,
under seven blankets of dust
and the dry feet of death,
we’ll be close again, love,
curious and puzzled.
Our different feathers,
our bumbling eyes,
our feet which didn’t meet
and our printed kisses,
all will be back together,
but what good will it do us,
the closeness of a grave?
Let life not separate us:
and who cares about death?

 If you'd not seen the movie "Il Postino" , please view it : it's  a story about a romantic postman &  Neruda  while he was an exile in small fishing town in Italy. Neruda helps the postman write poems to his lady.  The movie which was originally intended for a limited audience became an international hit.