by Pablo Neruda
Like ashes, like seas peopling themselves,
in the submerged slowness, in the shapelessness,
or as one hears from the crest of the roads
the crossed bells crossing,
having that sound now sundered from the metal,
confused, ponderous, turning to dust
in the very milling of the too distant forms,
either remembered or not seen,
and the perfume of the plums that rolling on the ground
rot in time, infinitely green.
All that so swift, so living,
yet motionless, like the pulley wild within itself,
those motor wheels in short.
Existing like the dry stitches in the tree’s seams,
silent, all around, in such a way,
all the limbs mixing their tails.
But from where, through where, on what shore?
The constant, uncertain surrounding, so silent,
like the lilacs around the convent
or death’s coming to the tongue of the ox
that stumbles to the ground, guard down, with horns that
struggle to blow.
Therefore, in the stillness, stopping, to perceive,
then, like an immense fluttering, above,
like dead bees or numbers,
ah, what my pale heart cannot embrace,
in multitudes, in tears scarcely shed,
and human efforts, anguish,
black deeds suddenly discovered
like ice, vast disorder,
oceanic, to me who enter singing,
as if with a sword among the defenseless.
Well now, what is it made of, that upsurge of doves
that exists between night and time, like a moist ravine?
That sound so prolonged now
that falls lining the roads with stones,
or rather, when only an hour
grows suddenly, stretching without pause.
Within the ring of summer
the great calabash trees once listen,
stretching out their pity-laden plants,
it is made of that, of what with much wooing,
of the fullness, dark with heavy drops.
- Share this Poem:
