Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto was born this day in 1904. He ‘borrowed’ his pen name from a Czech poet, Jan Neruda. A brilliant poet, a nobel laureate, nationalist and politician. He was murdered under orders of Augusto Pinochet by a doctor treating him for cancer. Pinochet staged a Coup D’état against the legally elected government of President Allende.
Pinochet was able to do this because he was supported by the US Government and received direct support from the CIA. That’s American democracy for you! Democracy for Americans who live in the United States, just not for all Americans, unless it is the right kind of democracy.
Enough with the politics, July is the month of tomatoes. I planted Marmandes this year. See the photo!
Ode to Tomatoes: by Pablo Neruda
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 lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
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.
Mindship 