Metaphors

This is from the movie “Il Postino” (a dialogue between Mario, the postman, and Pablo Neruda):

Mario: Don Pablo?
Neruda: Metaphors.
Mario: What are those?
Neruda: Metaphors? Metaphors are -- How can I explain? When you talk of something comparing it to another.
Mario: Is it something... you use in poetry?
Neruda: Yes, that too.
Mario: For example?
Neruda: For example... when you say, ''the sky weeps,'' what do you mean?
Mario: That it's raining.
Neruda: Yes, very good. That's a metaphor.
Mario: It's easy then! Why has it got such a complicated name?
Neruda: Man has no business with the simplicity or complexity of things.
Mario: Excuse me, Don Pablo, then I'll go.
I was reading something yesterday: ''The smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud.'' Is that a metaphor, too?
Neruda: No... not exactly.
Mario: I liked it, too, when... when you wrote: ''I am tired of being a man.'' That's happened to me, too... but I never knew how to say it. I really liked it when I read it. Why ''the smell of barber shops makes me sob''?
Neruda: You see, Mario... I can't tell you...in words different from those I've used. When you explain it, poetry becomes banal. Better than any explanation... is the experience of feelings that poetry can reveal... to a nature open enough to understand it.

I watched ‘Il Postino’ for the second time last night. I first heard about it from my professor way back in college - in one of my English classes. Although I was intrigued, I was lacking in enthusiasm then. But because Hyde mentioned he watched ‘Il Postino’ (even saw it twice), I made it a point that I see this movie (yes, Haido is my best motivation - hahahaha… My sister would’ve just rolled her eyes, almost like a reflex, after reading that line).

Because I am not very good with poems, I'm somehow relieved with what Neruda - the Pablo Neruda in the movie - said: When you explain it, poetry becomes banal. If that's the case, then reading a poem should be just like listening to a song in a foreign language - which is, thankfully, where I excel *grins*