Poem Box

"Cantiga 12: Birth of Venus"

From Cosmic Canticle by Ernesto Cardenal

Who'd have said that out of such confusion
there would one day emerge such a beautiful and fragile filigree,
life.
Fresh from the sea like Venus
life.
The sea was born from the wedding of hydrogen and oxygen
and life was born from the sea
in the salt transparency
molecules transforming into protoplasm.
Venus dripping, fresh from the sea.
The composition of our blood much akin,
according to Cousteau,
to that of sea water.

The salt of sweat and of our tears
is from the sea
...dripping.
Even now our bodies gush sea water.
Hence our need for water. Thirst.
Venus gushing water--the first algae.
Then the first prints in the sand.
The first eyes opened
and already the earth was green.
Plants. (From gas and water and sunlight).
The stench of mud and crushed leaves
created the sense of smell.
Toads and frogs were the first to hear.
Life came out of the sea, which explains
this oceanic to and fro in our veins.
And the moon's hold on us.

Life came out of the sea
like a bather on Corn Island beach.
Coconut palms in the foreground,
against the blue, the blues,
bluest of blues and
green swathes
like light-green rivers between the blue
dark blue
blue-black patches,
and the sky is scarcely blue at all against so many blues
and on the shore, on the stones: crystal, colorless, crystal;
closer in, sugar-like sand,
and coconut palms with coconuts in the foreground.
And the female bather saunters towards us
dripping wet.
Life came out of the sea. Venus gushing water.
That's why our blood is salty like the ocean
and the proportion of salt is the same.
And likewise the sodium, the potassium in our veins
come from the primeval ocean.
Gushing blood and tears.