Life


May others deal with the charnel house . . .
                                                                The world
shines a naked color of apples:  rivers
drag a tide of wild medallions
and over the land thrive Rosalia the Sweet
and Juan her companion . . .
                                                                Castles
are formed of hard rock, and mud, soft as grapes,
builds my house with remnants of wheat.
Wide earth, love, sullen bells,
fights reserved for the aurora,
tresses of love that await me,
sleeping deposits of turquoise:
houses, roads, waves that construct
a statue erased by dreams,
bakeries in the twilight,
scholarly clocks in the sand,
circular poppies of wheat,
and these darkened hands that knead
the materials of my life:
toward life the oranges ignite
over the throng of destinies!
May the gravediggers scrape
the ill-fated earth:  may they uncover
the ashen fragments without light,
and speak the language of worms.
I have in front of me only seeds,
radiant unravellings and sweetness.

Pablo Neruda