To My Copy of Neruda’s Collected Works

One doesn’t discover the poetry of Pablo Neruda; the poetry discovers you. An ode, perhaps, makes its way off the page and into your palm as you turn the page. It knows you the way aspirin knows your pain. It heals you.

Once this happened to me, I couldn’t imagine a day without one. So when I decided to leave my job at the theater and backpack around Europe, I knew the book would be packed on top, so it would be the first thing I touched in the morning and the last thing I touched at night.

I am explaining--trying to explain--this to a German man in his kitchen. We are crowded around his table because he has not invited us to sit anywhere else. His hair is spiked in a way that suggests he reads a lot of existential literature. He crosses his legs at the knee and his arms at the elbows, even though he is smoking and drinking a beer. “So, please,” he says, “Tell me more about zis Paaaablooo Neeeeruuuudaaa.” I think the German man has not yet read love poems. I change the subject.

But in Spain, Neruda makes sense. My friend and I eat tuna and tomato empanadas not only because they are cheap and easy to carry, but they taste exquisite and they are good any time of day. The vendor hands me one and I feel it warm in the napkin. We spend three days doing nothing but sitting on the beach, watching the water. I read the poems out of order. Behind me, the entire country beckons me to explore, but this is all I want. I will not regret it. I take notes and smear crumbs in the book.

We take the train across the Mediterranean coast and by midnight, we are crossing into Italy. We sleep in the car and I place the book in the backpack and the backpack on the rack above me. It’s the kind of sleep I can’t deny and when I wake up early the next morning, the backpack is gone. Neruda has been stolen.

I imagine them, young probably. They take the backpack to the next station and unpack it in a corner. They toss out Neruda and dig looking for money, a camera, a passport, traveler’s checks. They find nothing but pens, notebooks and clothes. They leave it all but the backpack itself in the station. Neruda lying on the floor, underneath a bench.

A toddler playing on the floor picks it up. It’s heavy. She hands it to her mother. The woman is waiting for her parents to arrive, but the train is late. If she reads to her daughter, maybe she will sit still. The daughter climbs up next to her as the mother begins to read. It’s English but she knows it. The poems find their way to the daughter. When she grows up, she remembers this morning. She writes a letter to her mom when she’s homesick, away at the university, “Remember the poems in the station? I still have the book.”