Jim Murphy
Ouro Preto, Bishop-Neruda
"I wrote her a
little poem in English.
It had a few errors, which is only as it should
be."
The article itself scrawled in small poor script
on a postcard—on a teeming jungle summer noon
when Pablo Neruda comes to call
on "That fine North American poet" and finds
her
gone to Rio de Janeiro, Massachusetts, Nova Scotia.
So instead of captivating crab cakes, rum, and poetry,
he attempts to learn his way about the grounds,
decides to pick half her tomatoes, and gets thrown out
by her Master Gardener. He has to duck the rocks
and livid curses tossed his way in Portuguese.
Even so, he admires the heat of that half-known
tongue’s elaborate invective as it spirals out behind.
Down on the main road, his driver’s asleep
in the cab, bill of a ballcap sagging over his nose.
There’s obviously no hurry, since all day
the pocked road has protested any sudden moves.
She doesn’t like you! Wasn’t that just
what Juan said when they blew a tire that morning?
The insolvent envoy-poet thinks that’s something
to remember. Just how the tire iron tore against
the lug nuts, Juan’s sopping bandana, cursing grunts,
and then the frilled quetzal that shot from the brush
when at last the car got moving. Portents and profanity—
all the ardent poets’ business he intended to discuss
with herself the gran turista. No sense stopping
now. He pops the trunk, reaches for the worn black
leather bag, unzips it, pulls out North & South.
When the trunk door crashes shut, the driver
kicks himself awake—To hell with you! Ah yes,
we’re back, my friend. Miss Bishop, it is thus—
a stillness shuffles forthward from the trees,
wild eyes stare behind a breastwork mottled green—
yet none but safe travels. I have "The Map" you left me
this day, the fourteen of June, nineteen fifty-three.
from The Southern Review.