Parkhurst The Delaware

I have a crazy, crazy love of things. I like pliers, and scissors. I love cups, rings, and bowls— not to speak, of course, of hats. I love all things, not just the grandest, also the infinitely small— thimbles, spurs, plates, and flower vases. Oh yes, the planet is sublime! It's full of pipes weaving hand-held through tobacco smoke, and keys and salt shakers— everything, I mean, that is made by the hand of man, every little thing; shapely shoes, and fabric, and each new bloodless birth of gold, eyeglasses, carpenter's nails, brushes, clocks, compasses, coins, and the so-soft softness of chairs. Mankind has built oh so many perfect things! Built them of wool and of wood, of glass and of rope: remarkable tables, ships, and stairways. I love all things, not because they are passionate or sweet-smelling but because, I don't know, because this ocean is yours, and mine: these buttons and wheels and little forgotten treasures, fans upon whose feathers love has scattered its blossoms, glasses, knives and scissors— all bear the trace of someone's fingers on their handle or surface, the trace of a distant hand lost in the depths of forgetfulness. I pause in houses, streets and elevators, touching things, identifying objects that I secretly covet: this one because it rings, that one because it’s as soft as the softness of a woman’s hip, that one there for its deep-sea color, and that one for its velvet feel. O irrevocable river of things: no one can say that I loved only fish, or the plants of the jungle and the field, that I loved only those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive. It’s not true: many things conspired to tell me the whole story. Not only did they touch me, or my hand touched them: they were so close that they were a part of my being, they were so alive with me that they lived half my life and will die half my death. "Ode to Common Things" — Pablo Neruda