And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
Interpretation
The speaker acknowledges that their words are influenced by past experiences and shared pain, making them more of a collective expression than individual ownership.
In this quote, Pablo Neruda reflects on the nature of language and expression, suggesting that words are not solely owned by the speaker. Instead, they carry the weight of collective experiences and shared suffering, growing and intertwining like ivy on a wall. This metaphor highlights the interconnectedness of human experience and the way personal pain can shape the way we express ourselves.
In practice
In a poetry reading to illustrate how personal experiences shape our words.
Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers to our faces. Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?
I want to see the thirst inside the syllables I want to touch the fire in the sound: I want to feel the darkness of the cry. I want words as rough as virgin rocks.β - Verb.
Only do not forget, if I wake up crying it's only because in my dream I'm a lost child hunting through the leaves of the night for your hands.
And here am I, budding among the ruins with only sorrow to bite on, as if weeping were a seed and I the earth's only furrow.
Once more I am the silent one who came out of the distance wrapped in cold rain and bells: I owe to earth's pure death the will to sprout.
I learned about life from life itself, love I learned in a single kiss and could teach no one anything except that I have lived with something in common among men.
To become a philosopher, start by walking very slowly.
you mean machines are like humans?" I shook my head. "No, not like humans. With machines the feeling is, well, more finite. It doesn't go any further. With humans it's different. The feeling is always changing. Like if you love somebody, the love is always shifting or wavering. It's always questioning or inflating or disappearing or denying or hurting. And the thing is, you can't do anything about it, you can't control it. With my Subaru, it's not so complicated.
It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.
My book centers in on the New Testament, the goal being to help a person who wants to understand the Bible to see how what God did as revealed in the New Testament will reveal to them their own personal story.
There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers after the Truth-have you ever heard of a permanent one?
The world is by no means averse to religion. In fact, it is devoted to it with a passion. It will buy any recipe for salvation as long as that formula leaves the responsibility for cooking up salvation firmly in human hands. The world is drowning in religion. But it is scared out of its wits by any mention of the grace that takes the world home gratis.
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