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Isla Negra


Isla Negra
Photo Information
Copyright: Rafael Perez (rafelito) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 697 W: 146 N: 613] (3611)
Genre: Places
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2007-04-14
Categories: Nature
Exposure: f/8.4
More Photo Info: [view]
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2007-05-09 11:36
Viewed: 826
Points: 14
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
Pablo Neruda and his wife Matilde Urrutia are buried here, with an obstructed view of their beach. In English, Isla Negra means "Black Island." It is a reference to a rock outcropping nearby.

A Song of Despair
translated by w.s.merwin
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not
drowned!

From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!
shirgold, Rgarcia, isabela_sor, Angelillo, MLINES, vinicio has marked this note useful
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Critiques [Translate]

  • Great 
  • Jimbal Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 154 W: 17 N: 164] (1115)
  • [2007-05-09 11:47]

Hi Rafael.
Beautiful picture. Excellent POV. Good sharpness and nice colours and contrast.
Perhaps a little tilt towards the right?
Thanks for sharing.
Greetings from Belgium.
JM

Maravillosa!!! Me encanta la composición en general y ni qué decir de los colores!!!

Sencillamente espectacular!!

Ohhh,Rafael...don't know what I like more..the photo or the note...I am reading again the poem,I love it!!!But the image completes the feeling ...
A big hug for you and for ...

Hola Rafael,

Una poética imagen muy bien acompañada por tu estupenda nota, bien traída! Sí que parece un bello lugar para una sepultura, la inmensidad del mar, la vida que rodea y llena la escena (la rica vegetacion), soledad y luz que siempre vuelve, a pesar de la oscuridad diaria... Una bella foto que inspira muchas cosas. Gracias, amigo.

Angel.

  • Great 
  • belido Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 3117 W: 98 N: 2533] (8837)
  • [2007-05-10 20:48]

Hola Rafael,

I like this shot a lot. Nice POV, with the ocean on the background and the plant on the left. Good job!
Regards,
Carlos

Hi Rafael. Good to see this view of the beach and surf in Chile. Excellent POV and colours. Interesting song/notes. TFS. Murray.

Beautiful nature and lovely garden of the sea house, nice place to have peaceful holidays, also very good image with excellent colors and beautiful composition, compliments Rafael.
Have a nice week
Ciao
Vinicio

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