Poem of the Day

It's a long one, but reading it while listening to Hootie and the Blowfish is lightening my day. Is that even a legit verb? Making my day better, I guess. Rather pleasant, and such.

Ode to an Artichoke
By Pablo Neruda
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

The tender-hearted
artichoke
got dressed as a warrior,
erect, built
a little cupola,
stood
impermeable
under
its scales,
around it
the crazy vegetables
bristled,
grew
astonishing tendrils,
cattails, bulbs,
in the subsoil
slept the carrot
with its red whiskers,
the grapevine
dried the runners
through which it carries the wine,
the cabbage
devoted itself
to trying on skirts,
oregano
to perfuming the world,
and the gentle
artichoke
stood there in the garden,
dressed as a warrior,
burnished
like a pomegranate,
proud,
and one day
along with the others
in large willow
baskets, it traveled
to the market
to realize its dream:
the army.
Amid the rows
never was it so military
as at the fair,
men
among the vegetables
with their white shirts
were
marshals
of the artichokes,
the tight ranks,
the voices of command,
and the detonation
of a falling crate,
but
then
comes
Maria
with her basket,
picks an artichoke,
isn't afraid of it,
examines it, holds it
to the light as if it were an egg,
buys it,
mixes it up
in her bag
with a pair of shoes,
with a head of cabbage and a
bottle of vinegar
until
entering the kitchen
she submerges it in a pot.
Thus ends
in peace
the career
of the armored vegetable
which is called artichoke,
then
scale by scale
we undress
its delight
and we eat
the peaceful flesh
of its green heart.

It's cool how you can be paradoxically anti-war and empowering women and exploring the importance of everyday life in a poem about an artichoke, which is a tasty food that I now feel like eating, with melted butter and lemon juice. Mm.

Also, while typing this, Hootie and the Blowfish ended, and "Before He Cheats" came up on my ipod. There's another piece of poetry for you to explore, if you will.

Read previous sentence: sarcastically.