From - Twenty Poems of Love. 1

If You Forget Me. 2

Tie Your Heart at Night to Mine. 3

Poetry Arrived. 4

Ode To Ironing. 5

Ode To Bird Watching. 5

Ode To The Book. 7

Ode to the Lemon. 9

I'll Explain some Things. 10

Ode To Clothing. 12

Ode To Olive Oil 14

Statues. 15

Opium in the East 17

Triangles. 17

Ode To Broken Things. 18

Beasts. 19

From - Twenty Poems of Love

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured

and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.

I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.

Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.

The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,

my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.

My heart looks for her: she is not with me

The same night whitens, in the same branches.

We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.

Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,

my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,

and these are the last lines I will write for her.

If You Forget Me

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

Tie Your Heart at Night to Mine

Tie your heart at night to mine, love,

and both will defeat the darkness

like twin drums beating in the forest

against the heavy wall of wet leaves.

Night crossing: black coal of dream

that cuts the thread of earthly orbs

with the punctuality of a headlong train

that pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly.

Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement,

to the grip on life that beats in your breast,

with the wings of a submerged swan,

So that our dream might reply

to the sky's questioning stars

with one key, one door closed to shadow.

LXXIX From: ‘Cien sonetos de amor’

Poetry Arrived

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no, they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,

but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth

had no way

with names

my eyes were blind,

and something started in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire

and I wrote the first faint line,

faint, without substance, pure

nonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing,

and suddenly I saw

the heavens

unfastened

and open,

planets,

palpitating plantations,

shadow perforated,

riddled

with arrows, fire and flowers,

the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

I felt myself a pure part

of the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke free on the open sky.

Ode To Ironing

Poetry is white

it comes dripping out of the water

it gets wrinkled and piles up

We have to stretch out the skin of this planet

We have to iron the sea in its whiteness

The hands go on and on

and so things are made

the hands make the world every day

fire unites with steel

linen, canvas and calico come back

from combat in the laundry

and from the light a dove is born

purity comes back from the soap suds.

Ode To Bird Watching

Now

Let's look for birds!

The tall iron branches

in the forest,

The dense

fertility on the ground.

The world

is wet.

A dewdrop or raindrop

shines,

a diminutive star

among the leaves.

The morning time

mother earth

is cool.

The air

is like a river

which shakes

the silence.

It smells of rosemary,

of space

and roots.

Overhead,

a crazy song.

It's a bird.

How

out of its throat

smaller than a finger

can there fall the waters

of its song?

Luminous ease!

Invisible

power

torrent

of music

in the leaves.

Sacred conversations!

Clean and fresh washed

is this

day resounding

like a green dulcimer.

I bury

my shoes

in the mud,

jump over rivulets.

A thorn

bites me and a gust

of air like a crystal

wave

splits up inside my chest.

Where

are the birds?

Maybe it was

that

rustling in the foliage

or that fleeting pellet

of brown velvet

or that displaced

perfume? That

leaf that let loose cinnamon smell

- was that a bird? That dust

from an irritated magnolia

or that fruit

which fell with a thump -

was that a flight?

Oh, invisible little

critters

birds of the devil

with their ringing

with their useless feathers.

I only want

to caress them,

to see them resplendent.

I don't want

to see under glass

the embalmed lightning.

I want to see them living.

I want to touch their gloves

of real hide,

which they never forget in

the branches

and to converse with

them

sitting on my shoulders

although they may leave

me like certain statues

undeservedly whitewashed.

Impossible.

You can't touch them.

You can hear them

like a heavenly

rustle or movement.

They converse

with precision.

They repeat

their observations.

They brag

of how much they do.

They comment

on everything that exists.

They learn

certain sciences

like hydrography.

and by a sure science

they know

where there are harvests

of grain.

Ode To The Book

When I close a book

I open life.

I hear

faltering cries

among harbours.

Copper ignots

slide down sand-pits

to Tocopilla.

Night time.

Among the islands

our ocean

throbs with fish,

touches the feet, the thighs,

the chalk ribs

of my country.

The whole of night

clings to its shores, by dawn

it wakes up singing

as if it had excited a guitar.

The ocean's surge is calling.

The wind

calls me

and Rodriguez calls,

and Jose Antonio--

I got a telegram

from the "Mine" Union

and the one I love

(whose name I won't let out)

expects me in Bucalemu.

No book has been able

to wrap me in paper,

to fill me up

with typography,

with heavenly imprints

or was ever able

to bind my eyes,

I come out of books to people orchards

with the hoarse family of my song,

to work the burning metals

or to eat smoked beef

by mountain firesides.

I love adventurous

books,

books of forest or snow,

depth or sky

but hate

the spider book

in which thought

has laid poisonous wires

to trap the juvenile

and circling fly.

Book, let me go.

I won't go clothed

in volumes,

I don't come out

of collected works,

my poems

have not eaten poems--

they devour

exciting happenings,

feed on rough weather,

and dig their food

out of earth and men.

I'm on my way

with dust in my shoes

free of mythology:

send books back to their shelves,

I'm going down into the streets.

I learned about life

from life itself,

love I learned in a single kiss

and could teach no one anything

except that I have lived

with something in common among men,

when fighting with them,

when saying all their say in my song.

Ode to the Lemon

From those lemon flowers

Set free

By the light of the moon

From that

Odor of a love

Frustrated,

Sunken in fragrance,

There came

From the Lemon tree its yellow,

From its planetary system

The lemons came down to the earth.

Tender merchandise!

Our shores filled up with it,

The markets

Of light, of gold

From a tree,

And we open up

The two halves

Of a miracle,

Congealed acid

Which ran

From the hemispheres

Of a star

And the most profound liquor

In nature,

Unchanging, alive,

Indestructible,

Born from the freshness

Of the lemon,

From its fragrant house,

From its acid, secret symmetry.

Inside the lemon the knives

Cut

A small

Cathedral,

The window hidden behind the altars

Opened to the light its glassy acids,

And in drops

Like topazes they were dripped

Onto the altars

By the architecture of freshness.

So when your hand

Squeezes the hemisphere

Of the cut

Lemon onto your plate,

A universe of gold,

You have poured out

One

Yellow cup

Full of miracles

One of the sweet-smelling nipples

Of the breast of the earth,

A ray of light that became a fruit,

The diminutive fire of a planet

I'll Explain some Things

You’ll ask, Where are the lilacs?

And the philosophy dreamy with poppies?

And the rain which kept beating out

Your words, filling them

With water-specks and birds?

I’m going to tell you everything that happened to me.

I lived in a neighborhood

In Madrid with church bells

And clock towers and trees.

From there you could see

The dry face of Castille

Like a sea of leather

My house was called

“The house with the flowers” because around it

Geraniums exploded. It was

A beautiful house

With dogs and kids.

Raúl, do you remember?

Frederico, do you still remember

Under the ground?

Do you remember my house with the balconies

Where the June light soaked your mouth with

The taste of flowers?

Brother! Brother!

The market place of Arguelles, my neighborhood

With its statue like a pale inkwell among

The fish stalls.

It was all

Loud voices, salty commerce,

A deep rumble

Of feet and hands filled the streets,

Meters and liters,

The sharp essence of life,

Fish stacked up,

The texture of roofs in the cold sun in which

The weather-vane grows tired.

Fine, crazily carved ivory of potatoes

Lines of tomatoes to the sea.

Then one morning flames

Came out of the ground

Devouring human beings.

From then on fire,

Gunpowder from then on,

From then on blood.

Bandits with airplanes and Moorish troops

Bandits with gold rings and duchesses

Bandits with black monks giving their blessing

Came across the sky to kill children

And through the streets, the blood of children

Ran simply, like children’s blood does.

Jackals that a jackal would reject

Stones that a dry thistle would bite and spit out

Vipers that vipers would hate!

I have seen the blood

Of Spain rise up against you

To drown you in a single wave

Of pride and knives!

Generals

Traitors

Look at my dead home

Look at broken Spain –

But from each dead house

Burning metal shoots out

Instead of flowers.

From every shell-hole in Spain

Spain will rise.

From every dead child a rifle with

Eyes will rise.

From every crime bullets will be born

Which will one day find a place

In your hearts.

You ask “Why doesn’t your poetry

Speak to us of dreams and leaves

Of the great volcanoes of your native land?”

Come

See the blood along the streets

Come see

The blood along the streets

Come see the blood

Along the Streets!

(Translator’s note: This poem is about the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939.Neruda was working in the Chilean Embassy in Spain when the civil war began. In 1936the Popular Front government, which included Communists, was elected in Spain. All butsix officers in the army refused to serve under the Popular Front. With the support of theCatholic Church four Spanish generals led an uprising against the Popular Front. Many ofthe troops in the uprising were Moorish, from the Spanish colony in Morocco. Also NaziGermany supported the uprising and tried out its new air force in bombing raids againstthose regions of Spain still controlled by the Popular Front. The uprising succeeded andGeneral Francisco Franco became dictator of Spain until his death in 1976.)

Ode To Clothing

Each morning you’re waiting

My clothing, on a chair

For me to fill you

With my vanity, my love

My hope, my body

I hardly

Have gotten out of sleep

I say goodbye to the water

I enter into your sleeves

My legs look for

The hollowness of your legs

And so embraced

By your tireless faithfulness

I go out to walk in the grass

I enter into poetry

I look through windows

At things

Men, women,

Deeds and struggles

Keep forming me

Keep coming against me

Laboring with my hands

Opening my eyes

Using up my mouth

And so,

Clothing,

I also keep forming you

Poking out your elbows

Snapping your threads

And so your life grows

Into the image of my live.

In the wind

You ripple and rustle

As if you were my soul.

In bad minutes

You stick

To my bones

Empty, through the night

Darkness, sleep

Populate with their fantasies

Your wings and mine.

I ask

If one day

A bullet

From the enemy

Might leave a spot of my blood on you

And then

You would die with me

Or maybe

It won’t all be

So dramatic

But simple

And you’ll just get feeble,

Clothing,

Growing old

With me, with my body

And together

We will enter

The earth.

That’s why

Every day

I greet you

With reverence and then

You embrace me and I forget you

Because we are just one

And we’ll keep going on together

Against the wind, in the night

The streets, or the struggle

One single body

May be, may be, some time will be immobile.

Ode To Olive Oil

Near the murmuring

In the grain fields, of the waves

Of wind in the oat-stalks

The olive tree

With its silver-covered mass

Severe in its lines

In its twisted

Heart in the earth:

The graceful

Olives

Polished

By the hands

Which made

The dove

And the oceanic

Snail:

Green,

Inumerable,

Immaculate

Nipples

Of nature

And there

In

The dry

Olive Groves

Where

Alone

The blue sky with cicadas

And the hard earth

Exist

There

The prodigy

The perfect

Capsules

Of the olives

Filling

With their constellations, the foliage

Then later,

The bowls,

The miracle,

The olive oil.

I love

The homelands of olive oil

The olive groves

Of Chacabuco, in Chile

In the morning

Feathers of platinum

Forests of them

Against the wrinkled

Mountain ranges.

In Anacapri, up above,

Over the light of the Italian sea

Is the despair of olive trees

And on the map of Europe

Spain

A black basketfull of olives

Dusted off by orange blossoms

As if by a sea breeze

Olive oil,

The internal supreme

Condition for the cooking pot

Pedestal for game birds

Heavenly key to mayonaise

Smoothe and tasty

Over the lettuce

And supernatural in the hell

Of the king mackerals like archbishops

Our chorus

With

Intimate

Powerful smoothness

You sing:

You are the Spanish

Laguage

There are syllables of olive oil

There are words

Useful and rich-smelling

Like your fragrant material

It's not only wine that sings

Olive oil sings too

It lives in us with its ripe light

And among the good things of the earth

I set apart

Olive oil,

Your ever-flowing peace, your green essence

Your heaped-up treasure which descends

In streams from the olive tree.

Statues

The pigeons visited Pushkin

And pecked at his melancholy

The gray bronze statue talks to the pigeons

With all the patience of bronze.

The modern pigeons

Don't understand him

The language of birds now

Is different.

They make droppings on Pushkin

Then fly to Mayakovsky.

His statue seems to be of lead.

He seems to have been

Made of bullets.

They didn't sculpt his tenderness -

Just his beautiful arrogance.

If he is a wrecker

Of tender things

How can he live among violets

In the moonlight

In love?

Something is always missing in these statues

Which are fixed rigidly in the direction of their times.

Either they are slashed

Into the air with a combat knife

Or they are left seated

Transformed into a tourist in a garden.

And other people, tired of riding horseback

No longer can dismount and eat there.

Statues are really bitter things

Because time piles up

In deposits on them, oxidizing them

And even the flowers come to cover

Their cold feet. The flowers aren't kisses.

They've also come there to die.

White birds in the daytime

And poets at night

And a great ring of shoes surrounding

The iron Mayakovosky

And his frightful bronze jacket

And his iron unsmiling mouth.

One time when it was late and I was almost asleep

On the edge of the river, far off in the city

I could hear the verses rising, the psalms

Of the reciters in succession.

Was Mayakovsky listening?

Do statues listen?

Opium in the East

Excerpt

Starting at Singapore it smelled of opium

The good Englishman knew what he was doing

At world conferences he thundered

Against the secret drug-lords

And in his colonies every port

sent up a cloud of authorized smoke

with an official number and a juicy franchise.

The official gentleman in London

dressed like a spotless nightingale

(with striped pants and a shirt starched into armor)

A nightingale trilling against the pusher

in the shadows.

But here in the Orient

the gentleman unmasked

Triangles

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.

Ode To Broken Things

Things get broken

at home

like they were pushed

by an invisible, deliberate smasher.

It's not my hands

or yours

It wasn't the girls

with their hard fingernails

or the motion of the planet.

It wasn't anything or anybody

It wasn't the wind

It wasn't the orange-colored noontime

Or night over the earth

It wasn't even the nose or the elbow

Or the hips getting bigger

or the ankle

or the air.

The plate broke, the lamp fell

All the flower pots tumbled over

one by one. That pot

which overflowed with scarlet

in the middle of October,

it got tired from all the violets

and another empty one

rolled round and round and round

all through winter

until it was only the powder

of a flowerpot,

a broken memory, shining dust.

And that clock

whose sound

was

the voice of our lives,

the secret

thread of our weeks,

which released

one by one, so many hours

for honey and silence

for so many births and jobs,

that clock also

fell

and its delicate blue guts

vibrated

among the broken glass

its wide heart

unsprung.

Life goes on grinding up

glass, wearing out clothes

making fragments

breaking down

forms

and what lasts through time

is like an island on a ship in the sea,

perishable

surrounded by dangerous fragility

by merciless waters and threats.

Let's put all our treasures together

-- the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold --

into a sack and carry them

to the sea

and let our possessions sink

into one alarming breaker

that sounds like a river.

May whatever breaks

be reconstructed by the sea

with the long labor of its tides.

So many useless things

which nobody broke

but which got broken anyway.

Beasts

It was the nightfall of the iguana

from his rainbow-colored crest

his tongue like a dart

sank into the greenery

The monastic ant colony stepped

with musical feet through the jungle.

The wild llama, as delicate as oxygen

in the wide brown high country

went walking in his golden boots

while the tame llama opened

his candid eyes onto the daintiness

of a world filled with dew.

The monkeys braided

an endless erotic thread

along the shores of daybreak

bringing down walls of pollen

and frightening the violet flight

of butterflies on the river.

It was the night of the alligators

the pure, pulsing night

of snouts sticking out of slime

and from the drowsy swamps

the dull noise of scale armor

goes back to the origin of the earth.

The jaguar touched the leaves

with his glowing absence.

The puma runs through the thicket

like a devouring fire

while in him are burning

the alcoholic eyes of the jungle.

Badgers are scrabbling the banks

of the river, sniffing at a nest

full of living delicacies

which they will attack with red teeth.

And in the depth of the great water

like the circle of the earth

is the giant anaconda

covered with ceremonial paint,

devouring and religious.