I See a Bee Going Around . . .





i see a bee going around this bee no longer exists
little fly with bright red pads as time and again your
      flight beats on
i incline my head lacking proof
i follow a string that marks at least a presence or
      a situation
i listen adorning the silence with incoming waves
that stir up turn over our confused echos as i sing
       in a high voice
stop, shadow of stars in the eyebrow of a man
      out for a walk
who carries on his back a frail golden woman
      mirror of herself
all is lost the weeks are shut in
i look conducting the wind with a secure proposal
like a flower which must scent the air
i open the quiet autumn i visit the sites of shipwrecks
in the depths of the sky birds appear like
       letters
and the dawn makes itself felt like the rind of a fruit
or perhaps you sink your feet somewhere else now
the day is of fire and it shores itself up in colors
the sea full of green clothes its saliva murmurs i am
      the sea
the stirring lured an uneasy crate
my soul is fresh with all my breathing
i suffocate beside antarctic nights
i put on the moon like a hyacinth flower knifewound
      of my sorrowful tear
here i am and this is my life with all my feet resembling each other
i turn a somersault i’m filled with transparent terror
i am alone in an exhibit without windows
without having to make discarded itineraries
i watch the walls fill themselves with snails like the sides
       of a boat,
absorbed deeply, i glue my face to them
following a clock not loving the night i wish it would pass
with snakeskin and lights
garland of the cold my belt twists itself in turn
i am the mare who galloped alone losing pursuit
       of the sad dawn
i accompany in my deafness an unceasing hollow
       trembling
the residents put to bed jump like rubber bands or fish
my wings absorb as a pavilion some forgotten park
and the ports threaten us like abandoned horseshoes
oh it surprises me song of the delirious carp
like a tightrope walker in love or the first fisherman
poor man, who, isolated, shivers like a drop,
a square of time strictly immobile


Pablo Neruda