Minerva: Once a Girl Lithe & Tawny

For Minerva the Inconsolable Cat...& the art of being alone...together

 

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Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms

the fruits, that plums the grains, that curls seaweeds

filled your body with joy, and your luminous eyes

and your mouth that has the smile of the water.

 

A black yearning sun is braided into the strands

of your black mane, when you stretch your arms.

You play with the sun as with a little brook

and it leaves two dark pools in your eyes.

 

Girl lithe and tawny, nothing draws me toward you.

Everything bears me further away, as though you were noon.

You are the frenzied youth of the bee,

the drunkenness of the wave, the power of the wheat ear.

 

My sombre heart searches for you, nevertheless,

and I love your joyful body, your slender and flowing

voice.

Dark butterfly, sweet and definitive

like the wheat-filed and the sun, the poppy and the water.

 

~ Pabo Neruda, "Girl Lithe and Tawny"

Done