Memories on a plate...reloaded

Pablo Neruda

Zilele trecute l-am descoperit pe Pablo Neruda. Poet și om politic chilian, consul în Spania, Japonia, China; ambasador la Paris, premiul “Cununa de aur” a Reuniunii Internaționale a Poeților din orașul iugoslav Strunga; Premiul Internațional Lenin “Pentru întărirea păcii între popoare”, 1953; laureat al Premiului Nobel pentru Literatură în anul 1971.

Enjoy.

Leaning Into The Afternoons


Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man’s.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that smell like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that is thrashed by your oceanic eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being 


Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be.