Explain the poem ‘Keeping Quiet.
Answer: Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda is an anti-war poem. The poet wants to establish peace, unity and equality in the mind of the human beings and in the physical world as well. In the first two lines the poet appeals to his readers to count up to 12 with him. Maybe 12 because there are twelve months in a calender year. Or it may refer to mid-night, 12 O'clock, after which a new day begins. Here it signifies a new beginning of life and society.
For a moment, Neruda wants us not to speak in any language because somehow diversity in language has divided people of the world in numerous linguistic groups. Then he is giving suggestion not to move our arms so much, here the word arm is significant. It not only means our body part arm but the arms that we use to kill others. This is the first time when we get hints that the poem is against war and killing of fellow human beings.
Here we find the message that the poet wants to deliver in this poem, if we can ignore insignificant differences between human beings and could eliminate the animosity toward others, then we will certainly get into an exotic moment and place where peace and happiness resides.
Pablo Neruda was a communist. All across his life he was against imperialism. He was also concerned about unnecessary human violence against animals. We are always busy to keep our life going, to make our life better and better. We want to decorate our identity with things of no necessity. To achieve that we hurt ourselves. The poet wants us to look at our wounds and pains that we have given ourselves to add false beauty to our livelihood.
The poet is telling us not to harm the environment. Not to kill people of other country or other race because they are not our enemies but brothers. The world is complete when we all are there. We need to stop everything, we need to be quiet.
Keeping quiet is not total inactivity. Life should be go on as it is. But we should have no truck with death. We should not be afraid of death. Death is natural. Fearing death makes our life complicated. The poet is so sure that knowing ownself will help us to get rid of most of our sadness and fear. The poem ends up with this message. At the last stanza of the poem, We can know that poet will count alone up to 12 and we have to get quiet and he will go away. Where will he go? Perhaps to the land of peace from where he came and we will follow him by keeping quiet as he suggested.
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