Friday Night Poetry: Pablo Neruda

It seems most of the poems I post are from the U.S., Europe, China or Japan. Below is a translation of Pablo Neruda, the famous poet from Chile who died in 1971. Neruda's books can be found at Amazon.com; also, here's a bio on Wikipedia and more information from POETS.org.


XII (from Twenty Love Poems)


Your breast is enough for my heart,
and my wings for your freedom.
What was sleeping above your soul will rise
out of my mouth to heaven.

In you is the illusion of each day.
You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers.
You undermine the horion with your absence.
Eternally in flight like the wave.

I have said that you sang in the wind
like the pines and like the masts.
Like them you are tall and taciturn,
and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage.

You gather things to you like an old road.
You are peopled with echoes and nostalgic voices.
I awoke and at times birds fled and migrated
that had been sleeping in your soul.



The above poem was translated by W. S. Merwin, one of the finest American poets and winner this year of the Pulitzer Prize for his book of poems, The Shadow of Sirius. Merwin is also a first-rate translator.