Katherine A. Johnson Ceramics

Ode to Things by Pablo Neruda

I love things with a wild passion
extravagantly
I cherish tongs,
and scissors;
I adore
cups,
hoops,
soup tureens,
not to mention
of course-the hat.
I love
all things,
not only the
grand,
but also
the infinite-
ly
small:
the thimble
spurs,
dishes,
vases.

Oh, my soul,
the planet
is radiant
teeming with
pipes
in hand,
conductors
of smoke;
with keys,
saltshakers, and
well,
things crafted
by the human hand, everything-
the curves of a shoe,
fabric,
the new bloodless
birth
of gold,
the eyeglasses,
nails,
brooms,
watches, compasses,
coins, the silken
plushness of chairs.

Oh
humans
have constructed
a multitude of pure things;
objects of wood,
crystal
cord
wondrous
tables,
ships, staircases.

I love,
all
things,
not because they
might be warm
or fragrant,
but rather because-
i dont know why,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine;
the buttons,
the wheels,
the little
forgotten
treasures,
the fans
of feathery
love spreading
orange blossoms,
the cups, the knives
the shears,
everythin rests
here in the handle, the contour,
the traces
of fingers,
of a remote hand
lost
in the most forgotten regions of the ordinarily obscured.

I pass through houses,
streets,
elevators,
touching things;
I glimpse objects
and secretly desire
something because it chimes,
and something else because
because it is as yeilding
as gentle hips,
something else I adore for its deepwater hue,
something else for its velvety depths

Oh irrevocable
river
of things.
People will not
say that I only
loved
fish
or plants of the rainforest or meadow,
that I only
loved things that leap, rise, sigh, and survive.
It is not true:
many things gave me completeness.

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