Sunday, January 10, 2010

These are all by Pablo Neruda, translated from Spanish -- Thanks, Scott!

41. Soneto 50
Cotapos says your laughter dives
like a hawk from a stony tower. It's true:
you slash the world's green leaves
with a single bolt of lightning from on high
that falls, and cuts, and leaps the tongues of dew,
the diamond waters, the bee-filled light.
And there where long-bearded silence had lived,
your starry grenades, your suns, explode.
Down comes the sky, and the shadows of night.
Lit by the full moon, bells and carnations burn,
the saddlemaker's horses gallop.
Because you are small as you are, let it rip:
let the meteor of your laughter fly,
electrifying the name of all nature.

42. Soneto 52
Singing unto the sun and sky with your song,
your voice threshes the grain of the day,
the pines speak with their green tongues,
all the birds of winter trill.
The sea fills its cellar with footsteps,
with bells, chains, and groans –
metal and tools jangle,
wheels of the caravan creak.
But I hear only your voice – it rises
with the flight and precision of an arrow,
it falls with the gravity of rain,
your voice scatters the highest swords,
and returns laden with violets –
my companion through the skies.

43. Soneto 53
Here are the bread, the wine, the table, the house:
a man's needs, and a woman's, and a life's.
Peace whirled through and settled in this place:
the common fire burned, to make this light.
Hail to your two hands that fly and make
their white creations, the singing and the food:
salve! the wholesomeness of your busy feet,
viva! the ballerina who dances with the broom.
Those rugged rivers of water and of threat,
torturous pavilions of foam,
incendiary hives and reefs:
today they are this respite, your blood in mine,
this path, starry and blue as the night,
this never-ending simple tenderness.

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