SUNDAY POETRY: "ODE TO A LARGE TUNA IN THE MARKET"

No better time for Neruda's poignant poem than today... as the 175 member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meet this week in Qatar to debate, among many things, giving protection to the Atlantic bluefin tuna via an Appendix I listing. This extraordinary predator, the tiger of the seas (not the chicken), is the most expensive food on Earth. A single bluefin recently sold in a Tokyo market for $175,000. Are we rich enough to leave it be?

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market
Pablo Neruda

Here,   

among the market vegetables,

this torpedo

from the ocean   

depths,   

a missile   

that swam,

now   

lying in front of me

dead.

Surrounded

by the earth's green froth   

—these lettuces,

bunches of carrots—

only you   

lived through

the sea's truth, survived

the unknown, the

unfathomable

darkness, the depths   

of the sea,

the great   

abyss,

le grand abîme,

only you:   

varnished

black-pitched   

witness

to that deepest night.

Only you:

dark bullet

barreled   

from the depths,

carrying   

only   

your   

one wound,

but resurgent,

always renewed,

locked into the current,

fins fletched

like wings

in the torrent,

in the coursing

of

the

underwater

dark,

like a grieving arrow,

sea-javelin, a nerveless   

oiled harpoon.

Dead

in front of me,

catafalqued king

of my own ocean;

once   

sappy as a sprung fir

in the green turmoil,

once seed

to sea-quake,

tidal wave, now

simply

dead remains;

in the whole market

yours   

was the only shape left

with purpose or direction

in this   

jumbled ruin

of nature;

you are   

a solitary man of war

among these frail vegetables,

your flanks and prow

black   

and slippery

as if you were still

a well-oiled ship of the wind,

the only

true

machine

of the sea: unflawed,

undefiled,   

navigating now

the waters of death.

Translated by Robin Robertson

Photo (top) courtesy WWF International

Photo (above) courtesy NOAA