An ode to sleeping in the forest
Pablo Neruda and Mary Oliver
"An Ode to Enchanted Light" and "Sleeping in the Forest"
"An Ode to Enchanted Light"
Under the trees lighthas dropped from the top of the sky,
light
like a green
latticework of branches,
shining
on every leaf,
drifting down like clean
white sand.
A cicada sends
its sawing song
high into the empty air.
The world is
a glass overflowing
with water.
"Sleeping in the Forest"
I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
Introduction
Tone and word choice
Figurative Language
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds." Then, a metaphor was used, specifically " I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed."
However, An Ode to Enchanted Light used plenty of similes and metaphors and no personification.
Form and Structure
Sleeping in the Forest had eighteen stanzas and does not have a rhyme scheme. So both poems are free-verse.