Innumerable corazón del viento, latiendo sobre nuestro silencio enamorado..

I realise I run the risk of putting my own poetry to shame in adding that of Neruda to my blog.. but sometimes there exists a sentiment that I struggle to express, and often I'll find it captured with an almost painful beauty in Neruda's words.. So, here, a couple - perhaps not even his most beautiful, but that speak to my travels in this place.

Too Many Names

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays

and the week with the whole year.

Time cannot be cut

with your weary scissors,

and all the names of the day

are washed out by the waters of night.

No one can claim the name of Pedro,

nobody is Rosa or Maria,

all of us are dust or sand,

all of us are rain under rain.

They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,

of Chiles and of Paraguays;

I have no idea what they are saying.

I know only the skin of the earth

and I know it is without a name.

When I lived amongst the roots

they pleased me more than flowers did,

and when I spoke to a stone

it rang like a bell.

It is so long, the spring

which goes on all winter.

Time lost its shoes.

A year is four centuries.

When I sleep every night,

what am I called or not called?

And when I wake, who am I

if I was not while I slept?

This means to say that scarcely

have we landed into life

than we come as if new-born;

let us not fill our mouths

with so many faltering names,

with so many sad formallities,

with so many pompous letters,

with so much of yours and mine,

with so much of signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,

unite them, bring them to birth,

mix them up, undress them,

until the light of the world

has the oneness of the ocean,

a generous, vast wholeness,

a crepitant fragrance.

Poesia

Pablo Neruda

Y fue a esa edad . . . Llegó la poesía

a buscarme. No sé, no sé de dónde

salió, de inverno o río.

No sé cómo ni cuándo,

no, no eran voces, no eran

palabras, ni silencio,

pero desde una calle me llamaba,

desde las ramas de la noche

de pronto entre los otros,

entre fuegos violentos

o regresando solo,

allí estaba sin rostro

y me tocaba.

Yo no qué decir, mi boca

no sabía

nombrar,

mis ojos eran ciegos,

y algo golpeaba en mi alma,

fiebre o alas perdidas,

y me fui haciendo solo,

descifrando

aquella quemadura,

y escribí la primera línea vaga,

vaga sin cuerpo, pura

tontería,

pura sabiduría,

del que no sabe nada,

y vi de pronto

el cielo

desgranado

y abierto,

planetas,

plantaciones palpitantes,

la sombra perforada,

acribillada

por flechas, fuego y flores,

la noche arrolladora, el universo.

Y yo, minimo ser,

ebrio del gran vacío

constelado,

a semejanza, a imagen

del misterio,

me sentí parte pura

del abismo,

rodé con las estrellas,

mi corazón se desató en el viento.

POETRY

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 planations,

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.