there is no forgetting
If you should ask me where I've been all this time
I have to say 'Things happen.'
I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,
on the river ruined in its own duration:
I know nothing save things the birds have lost,
the sea I left behind, or my sister crying.
Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock
with day? Why the dark night swilling round
in our mouths? And why the dead?
Should you ask me where I come from, I must talk
with broken things,
with fairly painful utensils,
with great beasts turned to dust as often as not
and my afflicted heart.
These are not memories that have passed each other
nor the yellowing pigeon asleep in our forgetting;
these are tearful faces
and fingers down our throats
and whatever among leaves falls to the ground:
the dark of a day gone by
grown fat on our grieving blood.
Here are violets, and here swallows,
all things we love and which inform
sweet messages seriatim
through which time passes and sweetness passes.
We don't get far, though, beyond these teeth:
Why waste time gnawing the husks of silence?
I know not what to answer:
there are so many dead,
and so many dikes the red sun breached,
and so many heads battering hulls
and so many hands that have closed over kisses
and so many things that I want to forget.
Pablo Neruda
E. O. Hoppe - Mrs. Elizabeth M. Dashwood, aka short story author E.M. Delafield, at home. UK 1925
Carl Mydans - Little girl sitting on a giraffe, the only animal that doesn’t go up and down on the merry-go-round in the Tivoli amusement park. Denmark. July 1952
Garry Winogrand, Woman Riding Bicycle, 1975.
W. Eugene Smith - A nurse holding a floral tribute stands at the grave of an elderly woman who died after a long stay at Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s hospital village. Lambarene, Gabon 1954
Jack Birns - The Manila Cathedral standing in long grass. Philippines. September 1949
Nina Leen - The local movie theater, boys have a very difficult time finding a place to put their long legs. Des Moines, June 1945
Nina Leen - Balloon Toys
Loomis Dean - Albert Camus, kissing actress Dominique Blanchar after rehearsal of one of his plays. Paris,1957
Marie Hansen - Woman holding a large white rabbit at a rabbit show. New York 1943
Walter Sanders - American GI leading German boys on tour of city as part of a Boys Club outing.Bremen, Germany, November 1946
J. R. Eyerman - Expanding balloon illustrates in two dimensions the theory of the expanding universe, Los Angeles, July 1950
Nina Leen - Lady modeling bonnet and Russian broadtail shawl,1947
Margaret Bourke-White - Russian children sleeping in the Mayakovsky subway station during German air raids on the city, Moscow,1941
Myron Davis - ROTC cadet Lieutenant William Ackenhauser snuggling in front seat of car with his date Joanne Warren, with tray attached to the vehicle’s open window at the Nu-Drive-In restaurant, Kansas City, March 06, 1945
Nina Leen - Model posing with with book and pet dog re Children’s Fall Fashion, New York, 1957
