Poetry (Poesia) by Pablo Neruda (Translated by Edwin Tanguma)
And it was at that age…Poetry arrived
Looking for me. I don’t know, I don’t know from where
It came, from the river or summer
I don’t know how nor when,
No, it wasn’t voices, it wasn’t
Words, nor silence
But from a street it called to me,
From the branches of the night,
Rapidly between the others,
Between violent bouts
Or returning alone,
It was there without countenance
And it touched me. I didn’t know what to say, my mouth
Didn’t know
How to name,
My eyes were blind,
And something was pounding at my soul,
Lost wings or fever,
And I went on alone doing,
Trying to make sense
Of that burning feeling,
And I wrote my first vague line,
Vague, without body, pure
Foolishness,
Pure knowledge
From the one who knew nothing,
And I saw quickly
The sky
Disintegrated
And open,
Planets,
Pulsars,
The perforated shade,
Tormented
By arrows, fire and flowers,
The overwhelming night, the universe.