Pablo Neruda

“Os animais foramimperfeitos,compridos de rabo, tristesde cabeça.Pouco a pouco foram se compondo, fazendo-se paisagem, adquirindo manchas, graça, voo.O gatosó gatoapareceu completoe orgulhosonasceu completamente terminado,caminha sozinho e sabe o que quer.O homem quer ser peixe e pássaro,a serpente queria ter asas,o cachorro é um leão desorientado,o engenheiro quer ser poeta,a mosca estuda para ser andorinha,o poeta tenta imitar a mosca,mas o gato só quer ser gatoe todo gato é gatodo bigode até o rabo,do pressentimento ao rato vivo,da noite até seus olhos de ouro.Não existe unidade como ele,nem têm a lua nem a flortal contextura:é uma coisa sócomo o sol ou o topázio,e a elástica linhade seu contornofirme e sutil é comoa linha da proa de uma nave.Seus olhos amarelosdeixaram uma sóranhurapara pôr as moedas da noite.Ó pequeno imperador sem orbe,conquistador sem pátria,mínimo tigre de salão, nupcialsultão do céudas telhas eróticas,o vento do amorna intempériereclamasquando passase pousasquatro pés delicadosno solo,farejando,desconfiadode tudo que é terrestre,porque tudoé imundopara o imaculado pé do gato.Ó fera independenteda casa, arrogantevestígio da noite, preguiçoso,ginástico, e alheio,profundíssimo gato,polícia secretadas moradas, talvez não sejas mistério,todo mundo sabe-te e pertencesao habitante menos misterioso, talvez todos o creiam, todos se creiam donos,proprietários, tiosde gatos, companheiros,colegas,discípulos ou amigosde seu gato.Eu não.Eu não concordo.Eu não conheço o gato.Tudo sei, a vida e seu arquipélago,o mar e a cidade incalculável,a botânica,o gineceu com seus extravios,o mais e o menos da matemática,os funis vilcânicos do mundo,a casca irreal do crocodilo,a bondade ignorada do bombeiro, o atavismo azul do sacerdote,mas não posso decifrar um gato.Minha razão resvalou em sua indiferença,seus olhos têm números de ouro.”

“Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon, thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light, what obscure brilliance opens between your columns? What ancient night does a man touch with his senses? Loving is a journey with water and with stars, with smothered air and abrupt storms of flour: loving is a clash of lightning-bolts and two bodies defeated by a single drop of honey.”

“Si nada nos salva de la muerte, al menos que el amor nos salve de la vida.”

“Tonight I Can WriteTonight I can write the saddest lines.Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.Tonight I can write the saddest lines.I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.How could one not have loved her great still eyes.Tonight I can write the saddest lines.To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.What does it matter that my love could not keep her.The night is starry and she is not with me.This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.The same night whitening the same trees.We, of that time, are no longer the same.I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.Love is so short, forgetting is so long.Because through nights like this one I held her in my armsmy soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.Though this be the last pain that she makes me sufferand these the last verses that I write for her.”

“LXXIXWhen I die, I want your hands on my eyes.I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me once more.I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.I want what I love to continue to live,and you whom I love and sang above everything else.to continue to flourish, full-flowered.So that you can reach everything my love directs you to. So that my shadow can travel along in your hair,so that everything can learn the reason for my song.”

“Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks"All those men were there inside, when she came in totally naked. They had been drinking: they began to spit. Newly come from the river, she knew nothing. She was a mermaid who had lost her way. The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh. Obscenities drowned her golden breasts. Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears. Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes. They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs, and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor. She did not speak because she had no speech. Her eyes were the colour of distant love, her twin arms were made of white topaz. Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light, and suddenly she went out by that door. Entering the river she was cleaned, shining like a white stone in the rain, and without looking back she swam again swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.”

“Es la hora, amor mío, de apartar esta rosa sombría, cerrar las estrellas, enterrar la ceniza en la tierra: y en la insurrección de la luz, despertar con los que despertaron o seguir en el sueño alcanzando la otra orilla del mar que no tiene otra orilla.”

“Si todos los rios son dulcesde donde saca sal el mar?If all rivers are sweetwhere does the sea get its salt?”

“Hay una estrella mas abiertaque la palabra 'amapola'?Is there a star more wide openthan the word 'poppy"?”

“Como se acuerda con los pajarosla traduccion de sus idiomas?How is the translation of their languages Arranged with the birds?”

“Donde termina el arco iris,en tu alma o en el horizonte?Where does the rainbow end,in your soul or on the horizon?”

“Sufre mas el que espera siempreque aquel que nunca espero a nadie?Does he who is always waiting suffer more than he who’s never waited for anyone?”

“Fue adondo a mi me perdieronquw logre por fin encontrarme?Was it where they lost methat I finally found myself?”

“Y por que el sol es tan mal amigodel caminante en el desierto?Y por que el sol es tan simpaticoen el jardin del hospital?And why is the sun such a bad companionto the traveler in the desert?And why is the sun so congenial in the hospital garden?”

“Por que en las epocas oscurasse escribe con tinta invisible?Why in the darkest agesdo they write with invisible ink?”

“Que sigue pagando el otono con tanto dinero amarillo?What does autumn go on paying forwith so much yellow money?”

“What will they say about my poetrywho never touched my blood?Que diran de mi poesialos que no tocaron mi sangre?”

“Las lagrimas que no se lloran Esperan en pequenos lagos?Do tears not yet spilled wait in small lakes?O seran rios invisibles Que corren hacia la tristeza?Or are they invisible riversthat run toward sadness?”

“Como se reparten el sol en el naranjo las naranjas?How do the oranges divide up sunlight in the orange tree?”

“I love you as one loves certain dark things.”

“Se d’improvvisomi dimentichi,non cercarmi,chè già ti avrò dimenticata.”

“Zabranjeno je plakati, bez da se nesto ne nauci, probuditi se u danu a ne znati sta ciniti, biti uplasen svojih vlastitih uspomena. Zabranjeno je ne smejati se problemima, ne boriti se za ono sto zelis, odustati od svega zbog vlastitog straha da ostvaris svoje snove. Zabranjeno je ostaviti svoje prijatelje, ne pokusati razumeti sao ste sve proziveli zajedno, i zvati ih samo onda kad ti je neophodno. Zabranjeno je ne biti svoj pred drugima, pretvarati se pred ljudima do kojih ti nije stalo, izigravati klovna da bi te pamtili, i zaboraviti sve kojima je zaista stalo do tebe.Zabranjeno je ne uciniti sve za sebe samog, biti uplasen od zivota i onoga cime te zivot obvezuje, ne ziveti svaki dan kao da je to tvoj poslednji dah. Zabranjeno je da ti nedostaje neko bez radosti, da zaboravis neciji smeh i oci, sve samo zato sto njegov put vise ne obuhvata tvoj, zabranjeno je zaboraviti njegovu proslost i zameniti je njegovom sadasnjoscu. Zabranjeno je ne pokusavati shvatiti druge misliti da je njihov zivot vredniji od tvog, ne spoznati da svako ima svoj put i slavu. Zabranjeno je ne stvarati vlastitu pricu, ne imati trenutak za one kojima si potreban, ne razumeti da je zivot ono sto daje , takodje i uzima. Zabranjeno je ne traziti srecu, ne ziveti zivot s' pozitivnim stavom, ne smatrati da uvek mozemo biti bolji; Zabranjeno je zaboraviti da bez tebe ovaj svet ne bi bio isti...”

“She did not speak for speech was unknown to her.”

“My soul is an empty carousel at sunset.”

“Zabranjeno je zaboraviti da bez tebe ovaj svijet ne bi bio isti”

“Cuando no puedo mirar tu cara...miro tus pies.”

“At night I dream that you and I are two plantsthat grew together, roots entwined,and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,since we are made of earth and rain.”

“Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,you look like a world, lying in surrender.My rough peasant's body digs in youand makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flowsand weariness follows, and the infinite ache.”

“Tonight I Can Write”

“It is not so much light that fallsover the worldextended by your bodyits suffocating snow,as brightness, pouring itself out of you, as if you wereburning inside.Under your skin the moon is alive.”

“so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you,so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”

“Oh, love is a journey with water and stars,with drowning air and storms of flour:love is a clash of lightnings, two bodies subdued by one honey.”

“Antes de amarte, amor, nada era mío: vacilé por las calles y las cosas: nada contaba ni tenía nombre: el mundo era del aire que esperaba.”

“Y aquella vez fue como nunca y siempre: vamos allí donde no espera nada y hallamos todo lo que está esperando.”

“Cuántas veces, amor, te amé sin verte y tal vez sin recuerdo, sin reconocer tu mirada, sin mirarte, centaura, en regiones contrarias, en un mediodía quemante: eras sólo el aroma de los cereales que amo.Tal vez te vi, te supuse al pasar levantando una copa en Angol, a la luz de la luna de Junio, o eras tú la cintura de aquella guitarra que toqué en las tinieblas y sonó como el mar desmedido.Te amé sin que yo lo supiera, y busqué tu memoria. En las casas vacías entré con linterna a robar tu retrato. Pero yo ya sabía cómo era. De prontomientras ibas conmigo te toqué y se detuvo mi vida: frente a mis ojos estabas, reinándome, y reinas. Como hoguera en los bosques el fuego es tu reino.”

“with your name on my mouth and a kiss that never broke away from yours.”

“There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.”

“yo te amo para comenzar a amarte,para recomenzar el infinitoy para no dejar de amarte nunca:por eso no te amo todavía.”

“I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,my rage, forgetting everything,I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedicshops,and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:underwear, towels and shirts from which slowdirty tears are falling.”

“We openthe halvesof a miracle,and a clotting of acidsbrimsinto the starrydivisions:creation'soriginal juices,irreducible, changeless,alive:so the freshness lives on”

“De pronto no puedo decirtelo que yo te debo decir,hombre,perdóname; sabrásque aunque no escuches mis palabrasno me eché a llorar ni a dormiry que contigo estoy sin vertedesde hace tiempo y hasta el fin.I can't just suddenly tell youwhat I should be telling you,friend, forgive me; you knowthat although you don't hear my words,I wasn't asleep or in tears,that I am with you without seeing youfor a good long time and until the end.”

“Whom can I ask what I cameto make happen in the world?”

“Am I allowed to ask my bookwhether it's true I wrote it?”

“How do the oranges divide upsunlight in the orange tree?”

“Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,without your going, that cuts noon lightlike a blue flower, without your passinglater through fog and stones,without the torch you lift in your handthat others may not see as golden,that perhaps no one believed blossomedthe glowing origin of the rose,without, in the end, your being, your comingsuddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:and it follows that I am, because you are:it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:and, because of love, you will, I will,We will, come to be.”

“Las lágrimas que no se lloranesperan en pequeños lagos?O serán ríos invisiblesque corren hacia la tristeza?”

“I don't know who it is who lives or dies, who rests or wakes, but it is your heart that distributes all the graces of the daybreak in my breast.”

“I move in the university of the waves.”

“Your wide eyes are the only light I know from extinguished constellations.”

“Why wasn't Christopher Columbus able to discover Spain?”