From the St Oswald’s Archives
A few weeks ago Kenny's sermon began with the quote "I want to do with
you what spring does to The cherry trees".
He mentioned that it was a phrase by Pablo Neruda, but didn't know much
about him.
By serendipity I had recently been
researching Neruda – a Chilean
diplomat and poet, winner of the
Nobel Prize for Literature and
probably murdered by the Pinochet
regime.
I’d come across him quite by chance
because I was writing the programme
notes for a choir concert.
The concert included a most beautiful
setting by the American choral
composer Morten Lauridsen of Neruda’s Soneto de la
Noche" (Sonnet of the Night).
The words are an inspiration for those separated by
death and I would like to share them with you:
When I die, I want your hands upon my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me one more time:
I want to feel the gentleness that changed my destiny.
I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep,
I want your ears to still hear the wind,
I want you to smell the scent of the sea we both loved,
and to continue walking on the sand we walked on.
I want all that I love to keep on living,
and you whom I loved and sang above all things
to keep flowering into full bloom,
so that you can touch all that my love provides
so that my shadow may pass over your hair,
so that all may know the reason for my song.
you,
(Translated by Nicholas Lauridsen)
StOM Page 11