Thursday

The not-happening was so sudden
that I stayed there for ever,
without knowing, without their knowing me,
as if I was under a chair,
as if I was lost in the night –
so was that which was not,
and so I have stayed since.

I asked the others after,
the women and the men,
what they were doing with such confidence
and how they had learned their living;
they did not actually answer,
they went on dancing and living,

It is what has not happened to one
that determines the silence,
and I don’t want to go on speaking
because I stayed there waiting;
in that place and on that day
I have no idea what happened
but now I am not the same.

– Pablo Neruda