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.
And I, infinitesimal,
Intoxicated by the vastness
Starry eyed,
Similarly, the image
Of the mystery
I felt I was a pure part
Of the abyss
I rode the stars
My heart unraveled in the breeze
poem by Edwin Tanguma
Added by Poetry Lover
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