Three triangles of birds crossed
Over the enormous ocean which extended
In winter like a green beast.
Everything just lay there, the silence,
The unfolding gray, the heavy light
Of space, some land now and then.
Over everything there was passing
A flight
And another flight
Of dark birds, winter bodies
Trembling triangles
Whose wings,
Frantically flapping, hardly
Can carry the gray cold, the desolate days
From one place to another
Along the coast of Chile.
I am here while from one sky to another
The trembling of the migratory birds
Leaves me sunk inside myself, inside my own matter
Like an everlasting well
Dug by an immovable spiral.
Now they have disappeared
Black feathers of the sea
Iron birds
From steep slopes and rock piles
Now at noon
I am in front of emptiness. It’s a winter
Space stretched out
And the sea has put
Over its blue face
A bitter mask.
Notes
translated by Jodey Bateman
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Comments
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Triangles.
My tulips are triangled, and twice at that.
Flowers, they are exactly like the birds, as precious and beautiful and symbolic. They are more than trees and less than a pair of eyes.
Pablo Neruda kicks so much, I can't even express it. He is one of my favorites ever--it's too bad I don't speak Spanish, or else I'd buy all his original translations so I could read them as he originally wrote them.
Although they are still amazingly beautiful in English.
Go Pablo Neruda, forever and ever.
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