Your Laughter

YOUR LAUGHTER

Take bread away from me, if you wish,

take air away, but

do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,

the lance flower that you pluck,

the water that suddenly

bursts forth in joy,

the sudden wave

of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back

with eyes tired

at times from having seen

the unchanging earth,

but when your laughter enters

it rises to the sky seeking me

and it opens for me all

the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest

hour your laughter

opens, and if suddenly

you see my blood staining

the stones of the street,

laugh, because your laughter

will be for my hands

like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,

your laughter must raise

its foamy cascade,

and in the spring, love,

I want your laughter like

the flower I was waiting for,

the blue flower, the rose

of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,

at the day, at the moon,

laugh at the twisted

streets of the island,

laugh at this clumsy

boy who loves you,

but when I open

my eyes and close them,

when my steps go,

when my steps return,

deny me bread, air,

light, spring,

but never your laughter

for I would die. 

Pablo Neruda

                    

              Before I start to analyse the poem, I realized that a lot of the meanings in his poem are metaphoric symbols of things that he went through in his life. He is able to look back at the events and describe the struggles he had to go through. His mother died when he was two, he’s been through two divorces and he lost his first child when she was just eight years old. As a communist, he had been through the struggle of having to leave his hometown and move away. As I read this poem, I can interpret that one of the reasons he was able to endure all the pain was through the love of writing poems and waiting for the women he describes in this poem.

                         

            In my opinion, this poem is beautifully written, it includes many different metaphors which greatly aides us when it comes to visualizing the poem in our head. The first stanza, even with only three lines, gives off a very good start to the poem. The speaker, Neruda, talks about how you can “take away the bread” and “take air away” but to “not take [him] from your laughter” (Neruda). Overall, he says that they can take away the basic needs of his survival as long as he can keep his love’s laughter. In the second stanza, he asks his love to not take away anything that is connected to her and her laughter. In this stanza, a great deal of imagery is visualized as his use of diction is amazing. I like this stanza as it helps me understand the information through the use of diction and metaphoric symbols of love through roses, bursts in joy and the thought of nice waves hitting the shore. The descriptive writing theme contributes to the understanding of the poem because it helps the reader feel connected through the help of imagery.

 

In the third stanza, Neruda talks about the struggles he had to face in his life. He talks about the unchanging world and the exhaustion he now feels. With him feeling so low, the laughter of his love rises up to the sky and in a way “opens for [him] all the doors of life”. The fourth stanza shows us how much the laughter means to Neruda. He connects his love’s laughter in a visual way so that us as reader’s can imagine how he feels too. The laugh keeps him going through the hard times of his life and he tells her to keep going as with her laughter, he will not give up on hope. During the last 5 lines of this stanza, Neruda uses clear diction to help create visual aid in our heads. I really like this stanza as we see how big of an effect his love’s laughter has on him. I personally love reading about stories that involve the topic of love and a happy ending. This stanza helped me visualize the love Neruda has for his love. The imagery and the metaphors helps contribute to the understanding of these stanzas because the words no longer have the simple meaning of their words, they now stand for their own individual meanings that elaborate his feelings for his love’s laughter.

                             

In the fifth stanza, Neruda explains how he wants his love’s laughter to be. He talks about the laughter taking the form of different natural beauties as the seasons change. I find this to be very sweet and I can see how Neruda feels about the laughter. The use of diction in this stanza, again, gives rise to images in our minds as we imagine the shape/form the laughter takes. In the final stanza, Neruda summarizes his feelings from throughout the poem. He tells his love to laugh at everything including himself, “this clumsy boy who loves you”,  and to end it off, he again, brings up the topic of food and air and how the laughter is all he needs to survive.

In my opinion, I love the poem overall as it shows the love Neruda has for the person he loves; possibly someone who he hasn’t even met yet. This reminds me of the time we had a family event which was a party for mother’s day. All the dad’s had to write a little love letter to the wives and read it out loud. The words they used to describe their love was really touching. Looking at the poem once it’s done, I believe that the poet is trying to convey his feelings for his love’s laughter and how it has a great impact on his life. I think that he wrote this poem to express his true inner feelings and is in search of the person who he describes through this poem. All in all, it was very clear that the main theme of this poem was the search for true love and the effect love has on one person. Whether it be towards their personality or for things we can't control, in this case his love's laughter.