Years ago, my life drawing teacher, David B Wilson, read this poem as we were drawing a longer pose. I remember scrawling the name ‘Pablo Neruda- poet’s obligation’ on the side of my drawing as I listened. I was spell bound by what I then heard, it was like a penny had dropped, a missing piece of my puzzle. What an amazing moment in my life. Suddenly there was a purpose behind my love for painting and drawing. My job was to set people free by reminding them of a time when they were free. The success of a painting may well be the place that it takes you. A time when you felt sand in your toes or the ringing of cicadas on a walk to the pool. Fond and distant memories or dreams. The smell of a camp fire etc etc. So many experiences we have in common. And how easily life drags us away from those moments and memories.
So in many ways, my paintings strive for these goals. To share these moments with people. To trigger personal memories and activate stories. I may or may not have met you, but I know that we have so much in common. We all need freedom and as times change this freedom becomes something even more valuable. You will know when a painting, song, poem, story or dance is successful in this way as your heart will be singing. It is our human connection. This is the poem-
Poet’s Obligation
To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell;
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.
So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea’s lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn’s castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying ‘How can I reach the sea?’
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of the sea-birds on the coast.
So, through me, freedom and the sea
Pablo Neruda
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.
