Ode to Salt

In the salt mines

I saw the salt 

in this shaker.

I know you won’t believe me,

but there it sings,

the salt sings, the skin

of the salt mines

sings

with a mouth choking 

on dirt.

Alone

when I heard 

the voice

of salt,

I trembled 

in the empty

desert.

Near Antofagasta

the whole 

salted plain 

shouts out

in its 

cracked voice

a pitiful 

song.

Then in its caverns

jewels of rock salt, a mountain

of light buried under earth,

transparent cathedral,

crystal of the sea, oblivion

of the waves.

And now on each table 

of the world 

your agile

essence,

salt,

spreading

a vital luster

on 

our food. 

Preserver

of the ancient 

stores in the holds

of ships, you were 

the explorer

of the seas,

matter 

foretold

in the secret, half-open

trails of foam.

Dust of water, the tongue

receives through you a kiss

from the marine night:

taste melds

your oceanity

into each rich morsel

and thus the least

wave

of the salt shaker

teaches us 

not merely domestic purity

but also the essential flavor of the infinite.

Salt is at the basis of every cuisine, probably the most common one, however I realized that because salt is so common, we don’t really know about it. Today I want to share a poem by Pablo Neruda to appreciate salt, an ingredient most of the time undervalued and took for granted.

I found interesting Neruda’s decision of using simple words to match the simplicity of salt that nonetheless gives honor to this common ingredient through a very poetic and evocative language.

1. Analysis:

• Alliteration:In the poem you can see the thecnique of alliteration, mostly in the first part. Alliteration creates musicality by repeating the initial stressed, consonant sounds within a phrase or verse line.

“It sings salt sings, the skin of salt mines sings”

By repeating the same sound from the word “salt”, it creates a particular musical impression, while emphasizing the topic at the same time.

• Personification:There’s also another vocabulary of poetry. I am talking about “personification”, a figure of speech in which the poet describes a nonhuman form as if it were a person. Salt, the nonhuman object of this ode, “sings”, “shouts out in its cracked voice”, is the “preserver of the ancient stores in the holds of ships” and is also the “explorer of the seas”   

  

• Persona: You can not really identify the persona, but that is the point. It is an obscure being somehow lonely, just observing the world from a timeless perspective. 

  
  

  “You won’t believe me”

  “Alone when I heard the voice of salt”

  “I trembled in the empty desert”

  
  

• Timeline: As it was for the persona, it is impossible to define the timeline precisely. From the use of words that create an image of vastity and of uncertainty, such as “oblivion”, “oceanity” and “infinite”, we arrived to the conclusion that this poem is permeated by a sense of timelessness. Through this timelessness, Neruda managed to transmit us the importance of salt which is beyond time and beyond nations or cultures. 

• Theme: To explain briefly, it is about how precious and powerful salt is.

The poem is written in the style of ode, which has its origin in ancient Greece. Commissioned by rich people,they used to write odes to praise Olympic winners, but in modern centuries odes are to praise ordinary things in everyday life enjoyed by ordinary people. Those odes are called “elementary odes”. 

In the poem Neruda glorifies the history of salt, and shows its importance with simplicity.

Poet’s background: The author of the poem is a Chilean, Pablo Neruda who lived from 1904 to 1973. He was a precocious boy who started writing poetry at the age of 10.  His works have positioned him as one of South America’s greatest writers and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971. He aligned himself with the communist party and besides being a poet, he was also a diplomat and politician. He used to be a senator of Anthofagasta, which is a region mentioned in this poem as well.