Tag: pablo neruda

as if I had never walked
except with you, my heart,
as if I could not walk
except with you,
as if I could not sing
except when you sing.

– from Pablo Neruda, Epithalamium

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

Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu pelo
y por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado,
no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia,
busco el sonido líquido de tus pies en el día.

Estoy hambriento de tu risa resbalada,
de tus manos color de furioso granero,
tengo hambre de la pálida piedra de tus uñas,
quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra.

Quiero comer el rayo quemado en tu hermosura,
la nariz soberana del arrogante rostro,
quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañas

y hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculo
buscándote, buscando tu corazón caliente
como un puma en la soledad de Quitatrúe.

–

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the colour of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitatrúe.

– Pablo Neruda