Autumn Ode to Tomatoes

Summer is over for another year. And so this tribute to the tomato - best and reddest of summer.

Ode to Tomatoes

Pablo Neruda

(trans. Margaret Sayers Peden)

The street

filled with tomatoes,

midday,

summer,

light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.

In December,

unabated,
the tomato

invades

the kitchen,

it enters at lunchtime,

takes

its ease

on countertops,

among glasses,

butter dishes,

blue saltcellars.

It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera

a cool

sun,

profound,

inexhaustible,

populates the salads

of Chile,

happily, it is wed

to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,

salt, its magnetism:

it is the wedding

of the day,

parsley

hoists

its flag,

potatoes

bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of the earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,

its canals,
its remarkable amplititude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.