neruda, pablo - windows that open inward- images of chile

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Windows that open inward : images of Chi TR654 .R69 19653

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NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF)

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Rogovin, Milton

Windows that open

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#8650

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B O R R O W E R S N AM E RO O Mn u m b e r

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Rogovin Milton 1909-Windows that open Inward : images

Chile / photographs by Milton Kogovl poems by Pablo Neruda ; edited by Dennis Maloney. Buffalo N.Y. : White Pine Press cl985.

[65J P. : ill. ; 23 cm.#8650 Ballen $27.00.ISBN 0-934834-51-2

1. Photography Artistic. 2. ChileDescription and travel 1981- ---Views. I. Neruda, Pablo, 1904-1973. Poems. English Selections. II. Maloney, Dennis. III. Title

I28 SEP 90 12493400 NEWCxc

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DATE DUE 9 91

HIGHSMITH # '4 5 2 2 0

TH E LIBR AR Y NEW C O LLE G E O F C A LIFO R N IA

5 0 F E LL STR EE T S A N FR A N C IS C O . C A LIFO R N IA 9 4 1

(4 IS ) 5 2 6 - 4 2 1 2

WINDOWS THAT OPEN INWARD

Images o f Chile

Photographs by Milton Rogovin

Poems by Pablo Neruda

Edited by D ennis MaloneyIntroduction by Pablo Neruda

Translations by Robert Bly, D ennis Maloney, W.S. Merwin, Alastair Reid and Janine Pommy Vega

White Pine Press

1 985 W h ile P in e P ress

The editor w ishes to thank the follow ing presses for perm ission to reprint the translations listed below:

Beacon Press: "Letter to Miguel O tero Silva, in Caracas," "Cristobal Miranda," Ode to My Socks," "United Fruit Company," and Hymn and Return" from Aenuici a nd Vallejo-Selected Poems translated by Robert Bly. 1971 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by perm ission o f Robert Bly.

Dell Publishing Company: "O de to the Clothes" from The Selected Poems o f Pablo X en u ta ed ited by Nathanial Tarn, translation by W. S. Merwin. 1972 by Dell Publishing Company. Reprinted by perm ission if Dell Publishing Company.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.: For Everyone, and "To Wash a Child" from Pally Em powered, Pastoral," "O ld Women o f the Shore, and "Too Many Names" from H.\Iraragarui; and "O h, F.arth, Wait for Me from Isla Xegra translated by Alastair Reid. lST^, 1975, 1981 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Reprinted by perm ission o f Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.

Publication o j this book was made possible by grants from the Xeir York State Council on the Arts through the Arts Council in Buffalo and Erie County (A I) S ) and the City o f Buffalo.

ISBN-0-9.V1834- (6-6 ISHN-O-93 fH34-5 I -2 (c lo th )

Published byW h ile Pine Press 73 Pu inam Sireel B u ffa lo , New Y o rk 14 2 13

WINDOWS THAT OPEN INWARD

The Islands and RogovinI did no t know Milton Rogovin.

His letter asked me an uncom m on question. He w anted to pho tograph the truth. I suggested that he com e to our Southernm ost part, to the Archipeligo, to Quem- chi, to Chonchi, to the sleepy shores o f the South o f the Americas.

He arrived quickly, w ell-equipped and efficient: N orth American. He came loaded dow n w ith lenses and cameras. He was too m uch for our simplicity. I recom m ended to him a good um brella. He w ent ahead to the rem ote villages.

But he carried m uch m ore than his equipm ent. Patient eyes and searching. A heart sensitive to light, to rain, to the shadow s.

Soon he re tu rned and left us. He re tu rned to Kansas, O regon, and Mississippi. But this time he took along w ith him a bouquet o f w onderful images; the portrait o f the truth. Portrait o f hum ble tru th that is lost in the inclem ency of the islands.

Walls of the hum ble hom es w ith their w indow s that op en inwards, to the m ythology, to the w hispering, to the black clothes. Eyes, penetrating and dark w ith sparks buried, like forgotten glow ing em bers in fireplaces w here once the fire had bu rn t so intensely.

Rogovin photographed the silence. Left intact in their m ystery those insular depths o f the islands w hich are revealed to us in sim ple objects, in crystalline poetry, as if the little village w ere living under the w ater w ith legendary belfries next to anchors o f the m ythological vessels.

The great pho tographer im m ersed him self in the poetry o f sim plicity and came to the surface w ith the net full o f clear fish and flow ers o f profundity .

Because the earth is extrem ely unfaithful, it offers itself to the foreign eye and deceives our eyes, our indifference, our ways.

Rogovin had to com e, pho tographer o f the poo r Negro, o f the black liturgy, of the hum iliated children o f the North, so that he may uncover for us o f the South, and so that he can take with him the truth o f the South, with those dark eyes which looked at us and we did no t see, w ith the p o o r pathetic and poetic poverty of the fatherland w hich we love and do no t know .

Pablo Neruda

Isla Negra

Images o f Chile

For Everyone

I cant just suddenly tell youw hat I should be telling you,friend, forgive me; you knowthat although you d ont hear my words,I wasnt asleep or in tears,that Im w ith you w ithout seeing youfor a good long time and until the end.

I know that many may w onder W hat is Pablo doing? I m here.If you look for me in this street youll find me w ith my violin, prepared to break into song, prepared to die.

It is no th ing I have to leave to anyone, no t to these others, no t to you, and if you listen well, in the rain, youll hearthat I com e and go and hang about. And you know that I have to leave.

Even if m y w ords d o n t know it, be sure, Im the one w ho left.There is no silence w hich doesnt end. W hen the m om ent comes, expect me and let them all know Im arriving in the street, w ith my violin.

Translated by A Reid

Pastoral

I copy ou t m ountains, rivers, clouds.I take my pen from my pocket. I note dow na bird in its risingor a spider in its little silkworks.Nothing else crosses my mind. I am air,clear air, w here the w heat is waving,w here a b ird s flight moves me, the uncertainfall o f a leaf, the globulareyes o f a fish unm oving in the lake,the statues sailing in the clouds,the intricate variations o f the rain.

Nothing else crosses my m ind exceptthe transparency of summer. I sing only o f the w ind,and history passes in its carriage,collecting its shrouds and medals,and passes, and all I feel is rivers.I stay alone w ith the spring.

Shepherd, shepherd, d o n t you know they are all waiting for you?

I know, I know, but here beside the waterw hile the locusts chitter and sparkle,although they are waiting, I want to wait for myself.I too want to watch myself.I want to discover at last my ow n feelings.And w hen I reach the place w here I am waiting,I expect to fall asleep, dying of laughter.

Translated by A. Reid

Ode to the Clothes

Every m orning you wait, clothes, over a chair, for my vanity, my love,my hope, my body to fill you,I have scarcely left sleep,I say goodbye to the water and enter your sleeves, my legs look for the hollow o f your legs, and thus em braced by your unwearying fidelity I go out to tread the fodder, I move into poetry,I look through windows,at things,m en, w om en,actions and struggleskeep m aking me w hat I am,opposing me,em ploying my hands,opening my eyes,putting taste in my m outh,and thus,clothes,I make you what you are, pushing ou t your elbows, bursting the seams, and so your life swells the image o f my life.

You billow

and resound in the windas though you were my soul,at bad m om entsyou clingto my bonesempty, at nightthe dark, sleep,people with their phantom syour wings and mine.I askw hether one day a bulletfrom the enem ywill stain you w ith my bloodand thenyou will die w ith me o r perhaps it may not be so dramatic but simple,and you will sicken gradually, clothes,w ith me, with my body and together we will enter the earth.At the thought o f this every day I greet youwith reverence, and thenyou em brace m e and I forget youbecause we are oneand will go on facingthe w ind together, at night,the streets o r the struggle,one body,maybe, maybe, o n e day motionless.

TYanslated by IP S Meruin

Ode To A Woman Gardener

Yes, I knew that your hands w ere a gilliflower in bloom , the lily o f silver:anything that had to do w ith the soil,w ith the blossom ing o f the earth,but,w henI saw you digging, digging, rem oving small stones and overcom ing roots,I suddenly knew , m y farmer, that no t only your hands bu t your heart was o f the earth, that there you understood and m ade things yours, touching moist doorsthrough w hichwhirlthe seeds.

Thus, as,one plant after another new ly planted,

your facestainedby a kissof m ud,you go ou tand returnflourishing,you go outand from your handthe stemof the alstrom eria raises its elegant solitude, the jasmine gracesthe m ist o f your foreheadw ith stars o f perfum e and the dew.

Allo f you grew, penetrating into the earth, and m ade im m ediate green light, foliage and pow er.You com m unicated w ithyour seeds,m y love,ruby gardener:your handyour selfw ith the earthand suddenly the cleargrow th o f a garden.

Love, so too your hand o f water,your heart o f earthgavefertilityand strength to m y song.You touchedm y breastwhile I sleptand the trees buddedin m y dreams.I w oke up, o pened m y eyes,and you had plantedinside o f meastonishing starsthat risew ith m y song.

So it is, gardener: our love iso f the earth:your m outh is a plant o f light, a corolla, m y heart w orks in the roots.

Translated by D. Maloney

Cristobai Miranda

(Shoveler at Tocopilla)

I m et you on the b road barges in the bay, Cristobal, while the sodium nitrate was com ing dow n, w rapped in a burning Novem ber day, to the sea.I rem em ber the ecstatic nim bleness, the hills o f metal, the m otionless water.And only the bargem en, soaked w ith sweat, moving snow.Snow o f the nitrates, poured over painful shoulders, dropping into the blind stom ach o f the ships.Shovelers there, heroes o f a sunrise eaten away by acids, and bound to the destinies o f death, standing firm, taking in the floods o f nitrate.Cristobal, this m em ento is for you,for the others shoveling w ith you,w hose chests are penetrated by the acidsand the lethal gases,making the heart swell uplike crushed eagles, until the m an drops,rolls toward the streets o f town,toward the broken crosses out in the field.Enough o f that, Cristobal, todaythis bit o f paper rem em bers you, each o f you,

the bargem en o f the bay, the m an tu rned black in the boats, my eyes are m oving w ith yours in this daily w ork and my soul is a shovel w hich lifts loading and unloading b lood and snow next to you, creatures o f the desert.

Translated by R. Bly

Too Many Names

Mondays are m eshed w ith Tuesdays and the week w ith the w hole year.Time cannot be cutw ith your exhausted scissors,and all the nam es o f the dayare w ashed out by the waters o f night.

No one can claim the nam e of Pedro, nobody is Rosa or Maria, all of us are dust or sand, all o f us are rain under rain.They have spoken to me o f Venezuelas, o f Chiles and Paraguays;I have no idea w hat they are saying.I know only the skin o f the earth and I know it has no name.

W hen I lived am ongst the roots they pleased me m ore than flowers did, and w hen I spoke to a stone it rang like a bell.

It is so long, the spring w hich goes on all winter.Time lost its shoes.A year lasts four centuries.

W hen I sleep every night, w hat am I called or no t called?And w hen I wake, w ho am I if I was no t I while I slept?

This m eans to say that scarcely

have we landed into life than we com e as if new-born; let us n o t fill our m ouths w ith so m any faltering names, w ith so m any sad formalities, w ith so m any pom pous letters, w ith so m uch o f yours and mine, w ith so m uch signing o f papers.

I have a m ind to confuse things, unite them , make them new -born, m ix them up, undress them , until all light in the w orld has the oneness o f the ocean, a generous, vast wholeness, a crackling, living fragrance.


Some Thoughts On An Impure Poetry

It is w o r th w h ile , at c e r ta in h o u rs o f th e d ay o r n ig h t, to lo o k closely at useful o b jec ts at rest. W heels that hav e crossed lo n g , d u s ty d is tan c es w ith th e ir e n o rm o u s lo ad s o f c ro p s o r o re , sacks fro m coal, b a rre ls , b a sk e ts , th e h a n d le s a n d h afts o f c a rp e n te rs too ls. T he co n tac t these o b jec ts hav e h ad w ith th e e a r th se rv e as a tex t fo r all to rm e n te d p o e ts . T h e w o rn su rfaces o f th in g s, th e w e a r th a t h a n d s g iv e to th e m , th e air, so m e tim es tragic, so m e tim es p a th e tic , em an a tin g fro m th ese o b je c ts len d s an a ttra c tiv e n e ss to th e rea lity o f th e w o rld th a t sh o u ld n o t b e s c o rn e d .

In th em o n e sees th e c o n fu se d im p u rity o f th e h u m a n c o n d itio n , th e m assin g o f th in g s, th e use a n d o b so le sc e n c e o f m ate ria ls , th e m ark o f a h a n d , fo o tp rin ts , th e ab id in g

presence o f th e h u m a n th a t p e rm e a te s all a rtifac ts .T h is is th e p o e try w e se a rc h fo r, w o rn w ith th e w o rk o f

h a n d s , c o r ro d e d as if b y ac ids , s te e p e d in sw ea t a n d sm o k e , reek in g o f u r in e a n d sm e llin g o f lilies so ile d b y th e d iv e rse tra d e s w e live b y b o th in sid e th e law a n d b e y o n d it.

A p o e try im p u re as th e c lo th in g w e w e a r o r o u r b o d ie s , a p o e try s ta in e d w ith so u p a n d sh a m e , a p o e try full o f w rin k le s , d ream s, o b se rv a tio n s , p ro p h e c ie s , d e c la ra tio n s o f lo v e a n d h a te , idylls a n d b eas ts , m an ifesto s , d o u b ts , den ials, a ffirm a tio n s a n d tax es .

T h e sa c re d c a n o n s o f th e m ad rig a l a n d th e d e m a n d s o f to u c h , sm ell, taste , s igh t a n d h ea rin g , th e p ass io n fo r ju stice a n d sex u a l d es ire , th e s o u n d o f th e sea - a c c e p tin g a n d re jec tin g n o th in g : the d e e p p e n e tra tio n in to th ings in th e quest o f lo v e , a c o m p le te p o e try so ile d b y th e p ig e o n s c law , to o th m a rk e d a n d s c a rre d b y ice, e tc h e d d e lica te ly w ith o u r sw e a t a n d use . U ntil th e su rface o f an in s tru m e n t is w o rn s m o o th th ro u g h c o n s ta n t p lay in g a n d th e h a rd so ftn ess o f ru b b e d w o o d reveals th e p rid e o f th e m aker. B lossom , w h ea t k e rn e l a n d w a te r sh a re a sp ec ia l c h a ra c te r , th e p ro fu se a p p ea l o f th e tac tile .

W e m u st n o t o v e r lo o k m e la n c h o ly , se n tim e n ta lity , th e p e rfe c t im p u re fru it o f a sp e c ie s a b a n d o n e d b y a p e n c h a n t fo r p e n d a n try - m o o n lig h t, th e sw a n at d u sk , all th e h a c k n e y e d e n d e a rm e n ts , su re ly th e y a re th e e le m e n ta l a n d essen tia l m a tte r o f p o e try .

He w h o w o u ld sh u n b a d ta s te in th in g s w ill fall o n his face.


The Old Women o f the Shore

To the grave sea com e the old w om en w ith shawls knotted round them , on frail and brittle feet.

They sit them selves on the shore w ithout changing eyes or hands, w ithout changing clouds or silence.

The obscene sea breaks and scrapes, slides dow n trum peting mountains, shakes ou t its bulls beards.

The unruffled w om en sitting as though in a glass boat look at the savaging waves.

W here are they going, w here have they been?They com e from every corner, they com e from our ow n life.

Now they have the ocean, the cold and burning emptiness, the solitude full o f flames.

They com e out o f all the past,from houses w hich once were fragrant,from burnt-out twilights.

They watch or d on t watch the sea,they scrawl marks with a stick,and the sea w ipes out their calligraphy.

The old w om en rise and go on their delicate b irds feet, while the great roistering waves roll nakedly on in the w ind.


The Builder

I chose my ow n illusion,from frozen salt I m ade its likenessI based my time on the great rain and, even so, I am still alive.

It is true that my long mastery divided up the dreams and w ithout my know ing there arose walls, separations, endlessly.

T hen I w ent to the coast.

I saw the beginnings o f the ship,I touched it, sm ooth as the sacred fish it quivered like the harp o f heaven, the w oodw ork was clean, it had the scent o f honey.And w hen it did no t com e back, the ship did no t com e back, everyone drow ned in his ow n tears w hile I w ent back to the w ood w ith an ax naked as a star.

My faith lay in those ships.

I have no recourse but to live.


Hymn and Return

(1939)Country, my coun try I turn my b lood in your direction.But I am begging you the way a child begs its mother, with tears:

take this blind guitar and these lost features.I left to find sons for you over the earth,I left to com fort those fallen w ith your nam e m ade o f snow, I left to build a house w ith your pure timber,I left to carry your star to the w ounded heroes.

Now I w ant to fall asleep in your substance.Give me your clear night o f piercing strings,your night like a ship, your altitude covered w ith stars.

My country: I want to change my shadow.My country: I want to have ano ther rose.I want to pu t my arm around your narrow waist and sit dow n on your stones w hitened by the sea and hold the w heat back and look deep into it.I am going to pick the thin flower o f nitrate,I am going to feel the icy w ool o f the field,and staring at your famous and lonesom e sea-foamIll weave w ith them a w reath on the shore for your beauty.

Country, my country,entirely surrounded by aggressive waterand fighting snow,the eagle and the sulphur com e together in you,

and a d rop o f pure hum an lightburns in your antarctic hand o f erm ine and sapphire,lighting up the hostile sky.

My country, take care o f your light! Hold upyour stiff straw o f hopeinto the blind and frightening air.All o f this difficult light has fallen on your isolated land,this future o f the race,that makes you defend a mysterious floweralone, in the hugeness o f an America that lies asleep.

JYatislated by R Bly

The United Fruit Company

W hen the trum pet sounded, it was all prepared on the earth, and Jehovah parceled out the earth to Coca-Cola, Inc., Anaconda,Ford Motors, and o ther entities:The Fruit Company, Inc. reserved for itself the m ost succulent, the central coast o f my ow n land, the delicate waist o f America.It rechristened its territories as the Banana Republics and over the sleeping dead, over the restless heroes w ho brought about the greatness, the liberty and the flags, it established the com ic opera: abolished the independencies, presented crow ns o f Caesar, unsheathed envy, attracted the dictatorship o f the flies,Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,Carias flies, Martinez flies,Ubico flies, dam p flies of m odest b lood and marmalade, drunken flies w ho zoom over the ordinary graves, circus flies, wise flies well trained in tyranny.

Among the b loodthirsty flies the Fruit Com pany lands its ships, taking off the coffee and the fruit;

the treasure o f our subm erged territories flows as though on plates into the ships.

Meanwhile Indians are fallinginto the sugared chasmsof the harbors, w rappedfor burial in the mist o f the dawn:a body rolls, a thingthat has no name, a fallen cipher,a cluster o f dead fruitthrow n dow n on the dump.


Ode to My Socks

Maru Mori b rought me a pair o f socksw hich she knitted herself w ith her sheepherders hands, two socks as soft as rabbits.I slipped my feetinto themas though intotwoc a s e sknittedw ith threads of twilight

and goatskin.Violent socks, my feet were two fish m ade o f wool, two long sharks sea-blue, shot throughby one golden thread, two im m ense blackbirds, tw o cannons: my feet were honored in this way bytheseheavenlysocks.They were

so handsom efor the first timemy feet seem ed to meunacceptablelike tw o decrepitfiremen, firemenunw orthyo f that wovenfire,o f those glow ingsocks.

Nevertheless I resistedthe sharp tem ptationto save them som ew hereas schoolboyskeepfireflies,as learned m en collect sacred texts,I resisted the m ad im pulse to put them into a golden cageand each day give them birdseedand pieces o f pink melon. Like explorers in the jungle w ho hand over the very rare green deer to the spit

and eat it w ith remorse,I stretched out my feet and pulled on the m agnificent socksand then m y shoes.

The moral o f my ode is this: beauty is tw ice beautyand w hat is good is doubly goodw hen it is a m atter o f tw o socks m ade of w ool in winter.


The Portrait in the Rock

Yes, I knew him. I lived yearsw ith him, w ith his substance o f gold and stone.He was a m an w ho was w orn dow n.In Paraguay he left his father and mother,his sons, his nephews,his latest in-laws,his gate, his hensand som e half-opened books.They called him to the door.W hen he opened it, the police took himand they beat him up so m uchthat he spat b lood in France, in Denmark,in Spain, in Italy, traveling,and so he died and I stopped seeing his face,stopped hearing his p rofound silence.Then once, on a storm y night, w ith snow weaving a pure coat on the m ountains, a horse, there, in the distance,I looked and there was my friend: his face was form ed in stone, his profile defied the wild weather, in his nose the w ind was muffling the how ls o f the persecuted.There the m an driven from his land returned: here in his country, he lives, transform ed into stone.


Oh, Earth, Wait for Me

Return me, oh sun, to my country destiny, rain o f the ancient woods.Bring me back its aroma, and the sw ordsfalling from the sky,the solitary peace o f pasture and rock,the dam p at the river margins,the smell o f the larch tree,the w ind alive like a heartbeating in the crow ded rem otenessof the tow ering araucaria.

Earth, give me back your pristine gifts, towers o f silence w hich rose from the solem nity o f their roots.I want to go back to being w hat I havent been, to learn to return from such depths that am ong all natural things I may live or no t live. I d o n t m ind being one stone more, the dark stone, the pure stone that the river bears away.


To Wash a Child

Love, the m ost im m em orial on earth,washes and com bs the effigy of the children,straightens the feet and knees;the water rises, the soap slithers,and the pristine body emerges to breathethe air o f flowers and the mother.

Oh, the sharp watchfulness, the sw eet deceptions, the loving struggle!

Now the hair is a tangled pelt crisscrossed by charcoal, by sawdust and oil, soot, wires, and crabs, until love patiently, patiently,sets up buckets and sponges, com bs and towels,and from scrubbing and com bing and amber, from ancient scruples and from jasmine, emerges the child, cleaner than ever, running from the m others arms to clam ber again on its w hirlw ind, to look for m ud, oil, piss, and ink, to hurt itself, tum ble about on the stones.In that way, new ly w ashed, the child leaps into life; for later it will have time for no th ing more than keeping clean, but lifelessly by then.

Translated by A Reid

Letter to Miguel Otero Silva, in Caracas

(1948)

Nicolas Guillen brought me your letter, w ritten invisibly, on his clothes, in his eyes.How happy you are, Miguel, bo th o f us are!In a w orld that festering plaster almost covers there is no one left aimlessly happy but us.I see the crow go by; theres no th ing he can do to harm me.You watch the scorpion, and polish your guitar.W riting poetry, we live am ong the wild beasts, and w hen we toucha man, the stuff o f som eone in w hom we believed,and he goes to pieces like a rotten pie,you in the Venezuela you inherited gather togetherwhatever can be salvaged, while I cup my handsaround the live coal o f life.

W hat happiness, Miguel!Are you going to ask w here I am? Ill tell yougiving only details useful to the Statethat on this coast scattered w ith wild rocksthe sea and the fields com e together, the waves and the pines,petrels and eagles, m eadows and foam.Have you ever spent a w hole day close to sea birds, w atching how they fly? They seemto be carrying the letters o f the w orld to their destinations.The pelicans go by like ships o f the wind,o ther birds go by like arrows, carryingmessages from dead kings, viceroys,buried w ith strands o f turquoise on the Andean coasts,and seagulls, so m agnificently white,they are constantly forgetting w hat their messages are.

Life is like the sky, Miguel, w hen we put loving and fighting in it, w ords that are bread and wine, w ords they have no t been able to degrade even now, because we walk ou t in the street w ith poem s and guns.They d o n t know w hat to do w ith us, Miguel.W hat can they do but kill us; and even that w ouldnt be a good bargainnothing they can do but rent a room across the street, and tail us so they can learn to laugh and cry like us.W hen I was w riting my love poem s, w hich sprouted out from me on all sides, and I was dying o f depression, nomadic, abandoned, gnawing on the alphabet, they said to me: W hat a great m an you are, T heocritus!I am no t Theocritus: I took life,and I faced her and kissed her,and then w ent through the tunnels o f the m inesto see how other m en live.And w hen I came out, my hands stained w ith garbage and sadness,I held my hands up and show ed them to the generals, and said: I am no t a part o f this crime.They started to cough, show ed disgust, left off saying hello, gave up calling me Theocritus, and ended by insulting me and assigning the entire police force to arrest mebecause I d idnt continue to be occupied exclusively w ith metaphysical subjects. But I had brought joy over to my side.From then on I started getting up to read the lettersthe sea birds bring from so far away,letters that arrive moist, messages I translatephrase by phrase, slowly and confidently: I am punctiliousas an engineer in this strange duty.

All at once I go to the window. It is a square of pure light, there is a clear horizon of grasses and crags, and I go on w orking here am ong the things I love: waves, rocks, wasps, w ith an oceanic and drunken happiness.But no one likes our being happy, and they cast you in a genial role: Now d ont exaggerate, d o n t worry,and they w anted to lock me up in a cricket cage, w here there would be tears, and I w ould drow n, and they could deliver elegies over m y grave.

I rem em ber one day in the sandy acresof the nitrate flats; there were five hundred m enon strike. It was a scorching afternoonin Tarapaca. And after the faces had absorbedall the sand and the bloodless dry sun of the desert,I saw com ing into me, like a cup that I hate, my old depression. At this time of crisis, in the desolation o f the salt flats, in that weak m om ent of the fight, w hen we could have been beaten, a little pale girl w ho had com e from the minesspoke a poem of yours in a brave voice that had glass in it and steel, an old poem o f yours that w anders am ong the w rinkled eyes of all the w orkers o f my country, o f America.And that small piece o f your poetry blazed suddenly like a purple blossom in my m outh, and w ent dow n to my b lood, filling it once m ore with a luxuriant joy born from your poem .I thought o f you, bu t also o f your bitter Venezuela.

Years ago I saw a student w ho had marks on his ankles from chains ordered on him by a general, and he told me of the chain gangs that work on the roads and the jails w here people disappeared forever. Because that is w hat our America

has been:long stretches w ith destructive rivers and constellations of butterflies (in som e places the em eralds are heavy as apples).But along the w hole length o f the night and the rivers there are always bleeding ankles, at one time near the oil wells, now near the nitrate, in Pisagua, w here a ro tten leaderhas put the best men of my country under the earth to die, so he can sell their bones. That is w hy you write your songs, so that som eday the disgraced and w ounded

Americacan let its butterflies trem ble and collect its emeralds w ithout the terrifying b lood of beatings, coagulated on the hands o f the executioners and the businessm en.I guessed how full o f joy you w ould be, by the Orinoco, singingprobably, or perhaps buying w ine for your house,taking your part in the fight and the exaltation,with b road shoulders, like the poets o f our agew ith light clothes and walking shoes.Ever since that time, I have been thinking of w riting to you, and w hen Guillen arrived, running over w ith stories o f you, w hich were com ing loose everyw here out o f his clothes they poured out under the chestnuts o f my houseI said to myself: Now!" and even then I d idn t start a letter to you.

But today has been too m uch for me: no t only one sea bird, b u t thousands have gone past my window,and I have picked up the letters no one reads, letters they take along to all the shores o f the w orld until they lose them .Then in each o f those letters I read w ords o f yours,and they resem bled the w ords I write, and dream of, and p u t in poem s,and so I decided to send this letter to you, w hich I end here,so I can w atch through the w indow the w orld that is ours.


I Will Return

Some o ther time, m an or w om an, traveler,later, w hen I am n o t alive,look here, look for mebetw een stone and ocean,in the light storm ingthrough the foam.Look here, look for me,for here I will return, w ithou t saying a thing,w ithout voice, w ithou t m outh , pure,here I will return to be the churningo f the water, o fits unbroken heart,here, I will be discovered and lost:here, I will, perhaps, be stone and silence.


Self-Portrait

How to arrange myself to seem bad and rem ain well? It is like w hen one looks at him self in the m irror (or the portrait) looking for the beautiful angel (w ithout anyone observing it) to check that one keeps on being the same always.

Some plant them selves sidew ays, o thers will im print the truth with that w hich they w ould like to be, o thers will ask them selves: H ow am I really?

But the truth is that we all live taking notes on ourselves, lying in am bush for our ow n selves, declaring only the m ost visible, and h iding the irregularity o f the apprenticeship and of tim e... But, le ts get to the point.

For m y part I am or belie%-e 1 am hard o f nose, minimal o f eyes, scarce o f hair on the head, grow ing of abdom en, long-legged, w ide-soled, yellow o f face, generous in loves, im possible to calculate, confused with w ords, tender o f hand, slow in going, unrustable heart; fan o f the stars, tides, tidal waves; adm irer of scarabs, walker o f sands, slow of intuition, Chilean to perpetu ity , friend o f my friends, m ute to enemies, intruder am ong birds, badly educated in the house, timid in the salons, audacious in solitude, repen ten t w ithout object, a ho rrendous adm inistrator, navigator o f the m outh, stirrer o f ink, discreet am ong animals, lucky in cloudbursts, in%estigator in the m arkets, dark in the libraries, m elancholic in the m ountains, untiring in the forests, %ery slow in answ ering, happening years later, vulgar throughout the year, resplendent with my no tebook , m onum ental o f appetite, a tiger for sleeping, quiet in joy, inspector o f the nocturnal heavens, invisible w orker, persistently irregular, valiant by necessity, cow ard w ithout sin, sleepy by vocation, friendly w ith w om en, active through suffering, poet by m alediction, and ignorant fool.

Translated by J Pommy Vega

neruda, pablo - windows that open inward- images of chile

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