“Carnal Apple, Woman Filled, Burning Moon”
Carnal apple, Woman
filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
5 Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
10 your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
5 Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
10 your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.
Pablo Neruda
This poem by Pablo Neruda is filled with much sensual
imagery that beautifully paints the image of a woman without sounding obscene,
as expected from him. With the very first phrase “carnal apple”, Neruda sets
the mood for the rest of the poem. The “apple”―alluding to the forbidden fruit
of good and evil in the Garden of Eden―that is “carnal” suggests the speaker is
describing his audience (the woman) as a tempting, bodily pleasure, and this
idea is continued throughout the rest of the poem.
The speaker adds to his female enticement an air of power with
certain symbols and connotations. For example, again in the first line, how the
speaker likens the woman to the “moon” results in the woman also being seen as
a great, divine body. The Moon itself is already a known figure of femininity and
influence, so the speaker using “moon” as another identifier of the woman gives
her that same image. Furthermore, the speaker suggesting that the woman
contains “secret knowledge” (3) makes her seem like a wise and old source of
guidance, like many already view the Moon.
This ‘old’ and deep-rooted feeling from the woman of the
poem continues―Neruda’s uses diction connoting things of ancient or primitive material.
The words “primal” (4) and “carnation” (13) connect back to the worldly,
primordial definition of “carnal” in the first line. Additionally, Neruda uses
imagery of the woman as basic forms of nature to add to the native feeling. As
the speaker describes, the woman’s body is made of “margins”, “rivers” and “villages”
(10) with “channels of blood” (12), with “blood” also connoting ancestry along
with carrying the tone of passion and pleasure. The woman’s body also holds an “infinity”
(9), like the vast and eternal characteristic of nature itself.
