Pablo Neruda / The Eighth of September

The Eighth of September

By Pablo Neruda

This day, Today, was a brimming glass.
This day, Today, was an immense wave.
This day was all the Earth.

This day, the storm-driven ocean
lifted us up in a kiss
so exalted we trembled
at the lightning flash
and bound as one, fell,
and drowned, without being unbound.

This day our bodies grew
stretched out to Earth’s limits,
orbited there, melded there
to one globe of wax, or a meteor’s flame.

A strange door opened, between us,
and someone, with no face as yet,
waited for us there.

Pablo Neruda / Your hands

Your hands

by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda / Tus manos

When your hands leap
towards mine, love,
what do they bring me in flight?
Why did they stop
at my lips, so suddenly,
why do I know them,
as if once before,
I have touched them,
as if, before being,
they travelled
my forehead, my waist?

Their smoothness came
winging through time,
over the sea and the smoke,
over the Spring,
and when you laid
your hands on my chest
I knew those wings
of the gold doves,
I knew that clay,
and that colour of grain.

The years of my life
have been roadways of searching,
a climbing of stairs,
a crossing of reefs.
Trains hurled me onwards
waters recalled me,
on the surface of grapes
it seemed that I touched you.
Wood, of a sudden,
made contact with you,
the almond-tree summoned
your hidden smoothness,
until both your hands
closed on my chest,
like a pair of wings
ending their flight.

Pablo Neruda / The Fickle One

THE FICKLE ONE

By Pablo Neruda


My eyes went away from me 
following a dark girl who went by.

She was made of black mother-of-pearl, 
made of dark-purple grapes, 
and she lashed my blood 
with her tail of fire.

After them all
I go.

A pale blonde went by 
like a golden plant 
swaying her gifts. 
And my mouth went 
like a wave 
discharging on her breast 
lightningbolts of blood.

After them all 
I go.

But to you, without my moving, 
without seeing you, distant you, 
go my blood and my kisses, 
my dark one and my fair one, 
my tall one and my little one, 
my broad one and my slender one, 
my ugly one, my beauty,

made of all the gold 
and of all the silver, 
made of all the wheat 
and of all the earth, 
made of all the water 
of the sea waves, 
made for my arms, 
made for my kisses, 
made for my soul.

Pablo Neruda / The Potter

THE POTTER

by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda / El alfarero

Your whole body has 
a fullness or a gentleness destined for me.

When I move my hand up 
I find in each place a dove 
that was seeking me, as 
if they had, love, made you of clay 
for my own potter's hands.

Your knees, your breasts, 
your waist 
are missing parts of me like the hollow 
of a thirsty earth 
from which they broke off 
a form, 
and together 
we are complete like a single river, 
like a single grain of sand.

Pablo Neruda / Always

Always

By Pablo Neruda

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

Pablo Neruda / The Condor

Pablo Neruda

BIOGRAPHY

El Cóndor

The Condor
Translated by Thayne Tuason

Yo soy el cóndor, vuelo
sobre ti que caminas
y de pronto en un ruedo
de viento, pluma, garras,
te asalto y te levanto
en un ciclón silbante
de huracanado frío.

I am the condor, I fly
above you that walks
and suddenly in a ring
of wind, pen, claws,
I assault you and lift you
in a whistling cyclone
of hurricane-like cold.

Y a mi torre de nieve,
a mi guarida negra
te llevo y sola vives,
y te llenas de plumas
y vuelas sobre el mundo,
inmóvil, en la altura.

And to my tower of snow,
to my black den
I’ll take you and live alone,
and you are filled with feathers
and you fly over the world,
still, in the height.

Hembra cóndor, saltemos
sobre esta presa roja,
desgarremos la vida
que pasa palpitando
y levantemos juntos
nuestro vuelo salvaje.

Female condor, we jump
on this red prey,
we tear up the life
that passes beating
and lift together
our wild flight.

Pablo Neruda 
Los versos del capitán (1952) 

Pablo Neruda / The Question

The Question

By Pablo Neruda

Love, a question
has destroyed you.

I have come back to you
from thorny uncertainty.

I want you straight as
the sword or the road.

But you insist
on keeping a nook
of shadow that I do not want.

My love,
understand me,
I love all of you,
from eyes to feet, to toenails,
inside,
all the brightness, which you kept.

It is I, my love,
who knocks at your door.
It is not the ghost, it is not
the one who once stopped
at your window.
I knock down the door:
I enter your life:
I come to live in your soul:
you cannot cope with me.

You must open door to door,
you must obey me,
you must open your eyes
so that I may search in them,
you must see how I walk
with heavy steps
along all the roads
that, blind, were waiting for me.

Do not fear,
I am yours,
but
I am not the passenger or the beggar,
I am your master,
the one you were waiting for,
and now I enter
your life,
no more to leave it,
love, love, love,
but to stay.

Pablo Neruda / Your Laugther

YOUR LAUGTHER

by Pablo Neruda

BIOGRAPHY

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die. 

Pablo Neruda / In You The Earth

In You The Earth

by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda / En ti la tierra

Little
rose,
roselet,
at times,
tiny and naked,
it seems
as though you would fit
in one of my hands,
as though I’ll clasp you like this
and carry you to my mouth,
but
suddenly
my feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips:
you have grown,
your shoulders rise like two hills,
your breasts wander over my breast,
my arm scarcely manages to encircle the thin
new-moon line of your waist:
in love you loosened yourself like sea water:
I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes
and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth.

Pablo Neruda / The Tiger

The Tiger

by Pablo Neruda

BIOGRAPHY

I am the tiger.
I lie in wait for you among leaves
broad as ingots
of wet mineral.

The white river grows
beneath the fog. You come.

Naked you submerge.
I wait.

Then in a leap of fire, blood, teeth,
with a claw slash I tear away
your bosom, your hips.

I drink your blood, I break
your limbs one by one.

And I remain watching
for years in the forest
over your bones, your ashes,
motionless, far
from hatred and anger,
disarmed in your death,
crossed by lianas,
motionless in the rain,
relentless sentinel
of my murderous love.

Pablo Neruda / Your Feet

Emmanuelle Seigner

YOUR FEET

TUS PIES

By Pablo Neruda
BIOGRAPHY

        

 When I cannot look at your face

I look at your feet.

Your feet of arched bone,

your hard little feet.

I know that they support you,

and that your sweet weight

rises upon them.

Your waist and your breasts,

the doubled purple

of your nipples,

the sockets of your eyes

that have just flown away,

your wide fruit mouth,

your red tresses,

my little tower.

But I love your feet

only because they walked

upon the earth and upon

the wind and upon the waters,

until they found me.

Pablo Neruda / The Insect



Photo by Waclaw Wantuch

THE INSECT
EL INSECTO

By Pablo Neruda
BIOGRAPHY

        

From your hips down to your feet

I want to make a long journey.

I am smaller than an insect.

Over these hills I pass,

hills the colour of oats,

crossed with faint tracks

that only I know,

scorched centimetres,

pale perspectives.

Now here is a mountain.

I shall never leave this.

What a giant growth of moss!

And a crater, a rose

of moist fire!

Coming down your legs

I trace a spiral,

or sleep on the way,

and arrive at your knees,

round hardness

like the hard peaks

of a bright continent.

Sliding down to your feet

I reach the eight slits

of your pointed, slow,

peninsular toes,

and from them I fall down

to the white emptiness

of the sheet, seeking blindly

and hungrily the form

of your fiery crucible!

               

Pablo Neruda / The Queen

Hope
by Paul McComrmack.

THE QUEEN
LA REINA

By Pablo Neruda

BIOGRAPHY

 I have named you queen.

There are taller than you, taller.

There are purer than you, purer.

There are lovelier than you, lovelier.

But you are the queen.

When you go through the streets

No one recognizes you.

No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks

At the carpet of red gold

That you tread as you pass,

The nonexistent carpet.

And when you appear

All the rivers sound

In my body, bells

Shake the sky,

And a hymn fills the world.

Only you and I,

Only you and I, my love,

Listen to me.