Latest / The Daily Poem / Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to the Yellow Bird”
Transcript
- 0:00[music]
- 0:05SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, September 28, 2026.
- 0:13SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Pablo Neruda.
- 0:16SPEAKER_00: It's called Ode to the Yellow Bird.
- 0:19SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking I had gone many weeks without sharing a Neruda poem,
- 0:24SPEAKER_00: which for me I think is a remarkable restraint.
- 0:27SPEAKER_00: So it's about time, and this one coincides nicely with the turning of the seasons.
- 0:33SPEAKER_00: Here is the poem.
- 0:35SPEAKER_00: Ode to the Yellow Bird.
- 0:38SPEAKER_00: I buried you in the garden, a grave, tiny as an open hand.
- 0:44SPEAKER_00: Southern earth,
- 0:45SPEAKER_00: cold earth,
- 0:46SPEAKER_00: fell covering your plumage,
- 0:48SPEAKER_00: the yellow rays, the black lightnings of your snuffed-out body.
- 0:52SPEAKER_00: From Mato Grosso, from fertile Goiania, they sent you, locked up.
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: You couldn't bear it.
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: You left.
- 0:59SPEAKER_00: In the cage with your small feet stiff,
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: as though clutching an invisible branch, dead,
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: a poor clump of extinguished feathers,
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: far away from your native fires, from the maternal thicket in cold earth, far away.
- 1:14SPEAKER_00: Bird most pure, I knew you alive, electric, excited, murmurous, your body was a fragrant arrow.
- 1:22SPEAKER_00: On my arm and shoulders you walked independent, untamed, black as black stone and pollen yellow.
- 1:29SPEAKER_00: Oh, wild beauty,
- 1:31SPEAKER_00: the proud determination of your steps,
- 1:33SPEAKER_00: in your eyes the spark of defiance,
- 1:35SPEAKER_00: but as a flower is defiant,
- 1:37SPEAKER_00: with the wholeness of an earthly integrity,
- 1:40SPEAKER_00: filled up like a bunch of grapes,
- 1:42SPEAKER_00: restless as a discoverer, safe in your frail arrogance.
- 1:47SPEAKER_00: I did wrong.
- 1:49SPEAKER_00: To the autumn that is beginning in my country,
- 1:52SPEAKER_00: to the leaves that fade now and fall,
- 1:54SPEAKER_00: to the galvanic wind of the south,
- 1:56SPEAKER_00: to the hard trees, to the leaves that you didn't know I brought you.
- 2:01SPEAKER_00: I made your pride travel to a different ashen sun,
- 2:04SPEAKER_00: far from your own that burns like a scarlet zither,
- 2:07SPEAKER_00: and when,
- 2:08SPEAKER_00: at the metallic hangar,
- 2:10SPEAKER_00: your cage landed,
- 2:11SPEAKER_00: already you had lost the majesty of the wind,
- 2:14SPEAKER_00: already you had been stripped of the zenith's light that had covered you.
- 2:17SPEAKER_00: Already you were a feather of death,
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: and then in my house your final look was into my face,
- 2:23SPEAKER_00: the reproach of your untamable gaze.
- 2:26SPEAKER_00: Later, with the wings closed,
- 2:28SPEAKER_00: you went back to your sky,
- 2:30SPEAKER_00: to the spacious heart,
- 2:32SPEAKER_00: to the green fire,
- 2:33SPEAKER_00: to the ignited earth,
- 2:35SPEAKER_00: to the slopes,
- 2:36SPEAKER_00: to the trailing vines,
- 2:38SPEAKER_00: to the fruits,
- 2:39SPEAKER_00: to the air,
- 2:40SPEAKER_00: to the stars,
- 2:41SPEAKER_00: to the secret sound of unknown springs,
- 2:44SPEAKER_00: To the moisture of fecundations in the jungle,
- 2:47SPEAKER_00: you went back to your origin,
- 2:49SPEAKER_00: to the yellow brilliance, to the dark breast, to the earth and sky of your home.
- 2:58SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
- 3:00SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
- 3:01SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with more poetry for you.
- 3:03SPEAKER_00: Till then,
- 3:04SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of The Daily Poem,
- 3:09SPEAKER_00: share your own thoughts and comments,
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: or subscribe and become a supporter of the show.
- 3:14SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy readings.