Pablo Neruda
Love For This Book
In these lonely regions I have been powerful
In the same way as a cheerful tool
Or like untrammeled grass which lets loose its seed
Or like a dog rolling around in the dew
Matilde, time will pass wearing out and burning
Another skin, other fingernails, other eyes, and then
The algae that lashed our wild rocks
The waves that unceasingly construct their own whiteness
All will be firm without us
All will be ready for the new days
Which will not know our destiny

What do we leave here but the lost cry
Of the seabird, in the sand of winter, in the gusts of wind
That cut our faces and kept us
Erect in the light of purity
As in the heart of an illustrious star?

What do we leave, living like a nest
Of surly birds, alive, among the thickets
Or static, perched on the frigid cliffs?
So then, if living was nothing more than anticipating
The earth, this soil and its harshness
Deliver me, my love, from not doing my duty, and help me
Return to my place beneath the hungry earth
We asked the ocean for its rose
Its open star, its bitter contact
And to the overburdened, to the fellow human being, to the wounded
We gave the freedom gathered in the wind
It's late now. Perhaps
It was only a long day the color of honey and blue
Perhaps only a night, like the eyelid
Of a grave look that encompassed
The measure of the sea that surrounded us
And in this territory we found only a kiss
Only ungraspable love that will remain here
Wandering among the sea foam and roots