Years of yours that I should have felt
growing near me like clusters
until you had seen how the sun and the earth
had destined you for my hands of stone,
until grape by grape you had made
the wine sing in my veins.
The wind or the horse
swerving were able
to make me pass through your childhood,
you have seen the same sky each day,
the same dark winter mud,
the endless branching of the plum trees
and their dark-purple sweetness.
Only a few miles of night,
the drenched distances
of the country dawn,
a handful of earth separated us, the transparent
walls
that we did not cross, so that life,
afterward, could put all
the seas and the earth
between us, and we could come together
in spite of space,
step by step seeking each other,
from one ocean to another,
until I saw that the sky was aflame
and your hair was flying in the light
and you came to my kisses with the fire
of an unchained meteor
and as you melted in my blood, the sweetness
of the wild plum
of our childhood I received in my mouth,
and I clutched you to my breast as
if I were regaining earth and life.– pablo neruda
My wild girl, we have had
to regain time
and march backward, in the distance
of our lives, kiss after kiss,
gathering from one place what we have
without joy, discovering in another
the secret road
that gradually brought your feet close to mine,
and so beneath my mouth
you see again the unfulfilled plant
of your life putting out its roots
toward my heart that was waiting for you.
And one by one the nights
between our separated cities
are joined to the night that unites us.
The light of each day,
its flame or its repose,
they deliver to us, taking them from time,
and so our treasure
is disinterred in shadow or light,
and so our kisses kiss life:
all love is enclosed in our love:
all thirst ends in our embrace.
Here we are at last face to face,
we have met,
we have lost nothing.
We have felt each other lip to lip,
we have changed a thousand times
between us death and life,
all that we were bringing
like dead medals
we threw to the bottom of the sea,
all that we learned
was of no use to us:
we begin again,
we end again
death and life.
And here we survive,
pure, with the purity that we created,
broader than the earth that could not lead us astray,
eternal as the fire that will burn
as long as life endures.– pablo neruda
When I reached here my hand stops.
Someone asks: “Tell me, why, like waves
on a single coast, do your words
endlessly go and return to her body?
Is she the only form that you love?”
And I answer: “my hands never tire
of her, my kisses do not rest,
why should I withdraw the words
that repeat the trace of her beloved contact,
words that close, uselessly
holding like water in a net
the surface and temperature
of the purest wave of life?”
And, love, your body is not only the rose
that in shadow or moonlight rises,
it is not only movement or burning,
act of blood or petal of fire,
but to me you have brought
my territory, the clay of my childhood,
the waves of oats,
the round skin of the dark fruit
that I tore from the forest,
aroma of wood and apples,
color of hidden water where secret
fruits and deep leaves fall.
Oh love, your body rises
like the pure line of a goblet
from the earth that knows me
and when my senses found you
you throbbed as though within you
rain and seeds were falling.
Ah let them tell me how
I could abolish you
and let my hands without your form
tear the fire from my words.
My gentle one, rest
your body in these lines that owe you
more than you give me through your touch,
live in these words and repeat
in them the sweetness and the fire,
tremble amid their syllables,
sleep in my name as you have slept
upon my heart, and so tomorrow
my words will keep
the hollow of your form
and he who hears them one day will receive a gust
of wheat and poppies;
the body of love will still
be breathing upon the earth!
– pablo neruda
Thread of wheat and water,
of crystal or of fire,
word and night,
work and anger,
shadow and tenderness,
little by little you have sewn it all
into my threadbare pockets,
and not only in the tremorous zone
in which love and martyrdom are twins
like two fire bells,
did you wait for me, my love,
but in the tiniest
sweet duties.
The golden oil of Italy made your nimbus,
saint of kitchen and sewing,
and your tiny coquetry,
that tarried so long at the mirror,
with your hands that have
petals that jasmine would envy,
washed the dishes and my clothes,
disinfected wounds.
My love, to my life
you came prepared
as a poppy and as a guerilla fighter:
silken is the splendor that I stroke
with the hunger and the thirst
that I brought to this world only for you,
and behind the silk
the girl of iron
who will fight at my side.
Love, love, here we are.
Silk and metal, come close to my mouth.– pablo neruda
Featured image by soulsongs
THINGFINDER 