Between dying and not dying
I picked on the guitar
and in that dedication
my heart takes no respite,
for where I’m least expected
I turn up with my stuff
to gather the first wine
in the sombreros of autumn.
If they close the door, I’ll go in
if they greet me, I’ll be off.
I’m not one of those sailors
who flounder about on the ice.
I’m adaptable as the wind is,
with the yellowest leaves,
with the fallen histories
in the eyes of statues,
and if I come to rest anywhere,
it’s in the nub of the fire,
the throbbing crackling part
that flies off to nowhere.
Along the margins
you’ll have come across your name,
I don’t apologize,
it had to do with nothing
except almost everything,
for you do and you don’t exist-
that happens to everybody-
nobody realizes,
and when they add up the figures,
we’re not rich at all-
now we’re the new poor…
Has anyone been granted as much joy as I have
(it flows through my veins)
and this fruitful unfruitful mixture
that is my nature?
I’ve been a great flowing river
with hard ringing stones,
with clear night-noises,
with dark day-songs.
To whom can I leave so much,
so much and so little,
joy beyond its objects,
a lone horse by the sea,
a loom weaving the wind?
My own sorrows I leave to
all those who made me suffer
but by now I’ve forgotten them
and I don’t know where I lost them-
if they turn up in the forest
they’re like tangle weeds.
They grow from the ground up
and end where you end,
at your head, at the air-
to keep them from growing,
spring has to be changed.
I’ve come within range of hate.
Terrifying, its tremors,
its dizzying obsessions.
Hate’s like a swordfish
invisible in the water,
knifing suddenly into sight
with blood on its blade-
clear water misleads you.
Why, why do we hate so much
those who hate us?…
Matilde Urrutia, I’m leaving you here
all I had, all I didn’t have,
all I am, all I am not.
My love is a child crying,
reluctant to leave your arms,
I leave it to you forever-
you are my chosen one.
You are my chosen one,
more tempered by winds
than thin trees in the south,
a hazel in August,
for me you are as delicious
as a great bakery.
You have an earth heart
but your hands are from heaven.
You are red and spicy,
you are white and salty
like pickled onions,
you are a laughing piano
with every human note
and music runs over me
from your eyelashes and your hair.
I wallow in your gold shadow,
I’m enchanted by your ears
as though I had seen them before
in underwater coral…
Your eyes widen from south to south,
your smile goes east and west
your feet can hardly be seen,
and the sun takes pleasure
in dawning in your hair.
Your face and your body come from
hard places, as I do,
from rain-washed rituals,
ancient lands and martyrs.
The Bío-Bío still sings
in our bloodstained clay,
but you brought from the forest
every secret scent,
and the way your profile has of shining
like a lost arrow,
an old warrior’s medal.
You overcame me
with love and origins,
because your mouth brought back
ancient beginnings,
forest meetings from another time,
dark ancestral drums.
I suddenly heard myself summoned-
it was far away, vague.
I moved close to ancient foliage.
I touched my blood in your mouth,
dear love, my Araucana.
What can I leave you Matilde,
when you have at your touch
that aura of burning leaves,
that fragrance of strawberries,
and between your sea-breasts
the half-light of Cauquenes,
and the laurel-smell of Chile?
It is high autumn at sea,
full of mists and hidden places;
the land stretches and breathes,
leaves fall by the month.
And you, bent over my work,
with both passion and patience,
deciphering the green prints,
the spider webs, the insects
of my fateful handwriting.
Lioness on your little feet,
what would I do without the neat ways of your hands?
Where would I be wandering
with no heart, with no end?
On what faraway buses,
flushed with fire or snow?
I owe you marine autumn
with dankness at its roots
and the graceful sun of the country;
I owe you the silent space
in which sorrows lose themselves
and only the bright crown
of joy comes to the surface.
I owe you it all,
my unchained dove,
my crested quail,
my mountain finch,
my peasant from Coihueco.
Sometime, when we’ve stopped being,
stopped coming and going,
under seven blankets of dust
and the dry feet of death,
we’ll be close again, love,
curious and puzzled.
Our different feathers,
our bumbling eyes,
our feet which didn’t meet
and our printed kisses,
all will be back together,
but what good will it do us,
the closeness of a grave?
Let life not separate us;
and who cares about death?
So I’m saying good-bye, gentlemen,
after so many farewells;
and since I’m leaving nothing,
I want everyone to have something;
the stormiest thing I had,
the craziest and most seething
comes back to earth, comes back to life.
The petals of well-wishing
fell like bells
in the green mouth of the wind.
But I’ve had in abundance
the bounty of friends of strangers.
I’ve found generosity
wherever my ways took me
and I found it everywhere
like a shared-out heart.
Nor did medicinal frontiers
every upset my exile-
they shared bread with me, danger, shelter, wine.
The world threw open its orchards
and I went in, like Jack to his house,
between two rows of tenderness.
I have as many friends in the South
as I have in the North,
the sun could never set
on my friends in the East-
and how many in the West?
I can’t count the wheat…
Everywhere I gathered
the honey that bears devour,
the secret stirrings of spring,
the treasure of the elephants,
and that I leave to my own ones,
the clear stream of my family.
The people defined me
and I never stopped being one of them.
I held in the palm of my hand
the world with its archipelagoes
and since I can’t be denied,
I never denied by heart,
or oysters, or stars.
From having been born so often
I have salty experience
like creatures of the sea
with a passion for stars
and an earthy destination.
And so I move without knowing
to which world I’ll be returning
or if I’ll go on living.
While things are settling down,
here I’ve left my testament,
my shifting extravagaria,
so whoever goes on reading it
will never take in anything
except the constant moving
of a clear and bewildered man,
a man rainy and happy,
lively and autumn-minded.
And now I’m going behind
this page, but not disappearing.
I’ll dive into clear air
like a swimmer in the sky,
and then get back to growing
till one day I’m so small
that the wind will take me away
and I won’t know my own name
and I won’t be there when I wake.
Then I will sing in the silence.
- Pablo Neruda
