This is Where I Live

I am one of those who live

in the middle of the sea and close to the twilight,

a little beyond those stones.

 

When I came

and saw what was happening

I decided on the spot.

 

The day had spread itself

and everything was light

and the sea was beating

like a salty lion,

many-handed.

 

All that deserted space was singing

and I, lost and awed,

looking toward the silence,

opened my mouth and said:

"Mother of the foam, expansive solitude,

here I will begin my own rejoicing,

my particular poetry."

 

From then on

I was never let down by a single wave.

I always found the flavor of the sky

in the water, in the earth,

and the wood and the sea burned together

through the lonely winters.

 

I am grateful to the earth

for having waited for me

when sky and sea came together

like two lips touching;

for that's no small thing, no?

to have lived through one solitude

to arrive at another,

to feel oneself many things and recover wholeness.

 

I love all the things there are,

all of all fires,

love is the only inexhaustible one;

and that's why I go from life to life,

from guitar to guitar,

and I have no fear

of light or of shade,

and almost always being earth myself,

I spoon away at infinity.

 

So no one can ever fail

to find my doorless numberless house --

there between dark stones,

facing the flash

of the violent salt,

there we live, my woman and I,

there we take root.

Grant us help then.

Help us to be more of the earth each day!

Help us to be more the sacred foam,

more the swish of the wave!

 

~ Pablo Neruda (1957-58)

 

 

Done