Two poems from Pablo Neruda

[the-sin-nitesh.livejournal.com]

I was browsing through my collection of poems, and decided to post two of Neruda's translation. I hope you would like these.


Morning XXVII
Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
you have moon-lines, apple-pathways:
naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

Naked, you are blue as a night in Cuba;
you have vines and stars in your hair;
naked you are spacious and yellow
as summer in a golden church.

Naked, you are tiny as one of your nails -
curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
and you withdraw to the underground world,

as if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
your clear light dims, gets dressed - drops its leaves -
and becomes a naked hand again.

-- Pablo Neruda

Don't Go Far Off

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

-- Pablo Neruda

Unfortunately I do not seem to have stored the information about the translators. I will have to be excused on this count. :-)

Comments

[elsabeta.livejournal.com]

I am such a fan of Neruda's work. For now I can only read his poems in translation, but even through that imperfect medium they still reach me. So until I can read the original poems, I suspect we both will have be excused. :) My thanks for posting these!