THE POETRY – LA POESÍA

And it was at that age ….. came the poem
looking for me. I don’t know, don’t really know where
it was, winter or stream.
No I don’t know how or when,
no, it wasn’t voices, was not
words, not silence,
but from a street she called me
from the branches of the night,
suddenly between the others,
within the violent furnace
I moving on alone,
there was no face
and she touched me.

I did not know what to say, my lips
did not know
a name for her,
my eyes were blind,
as something beat on my soul,
fever and wings missing,
and I left being alone,
deciphering
that one burn,
and I wrote the first vague line,
vague, disembodied, pure
foolishness,
pure wisdom
she knows nothing,
and I saw all of a sudden
heaven
must be rebuilt
and open,
planets,
plantations pulsating,
riddled
with arrows, fires and flowers,
evening overwhelming the universe.

And I, the least being,
intoxicated by the great void
star-laden,
a likeness, an image
of the mystery,
I felt the purest part
of the abyss,
I rolled with the stars,
and my soul was unleashed with the wind.

David Scanlon – England – (1963 – )

Neruda, P. (2018) Collected Poems: New Translations: New Translations. The Foolish Poet Press, Wilmslow, Chile. THE POETRY - LA POESÍA. Page Number 7.

Y FUE a esa edad… Llegó la poesía
a buscarme. No sé, no sé de dónde
salió, de invierno o río.
No sé cómo ni cuándo,
no, no eran voces, no eran
palabras, ni silencio,
pero desde una calle me llamaba,
desde las ramas de la noche,
de pronto entre los otros,
entre fuegos violentos
o regresando solo,
allí estaba sin rostro
y me tocaba.

Yo no sabía qué decir, mi boca
no sabía
nombrar,
mis ojos eran ciegos,
y algo golpeaba en mi alma,
fiebre o alas perdidas,
y me fui haciendo solo,
descifrando
aquella quemadura,
y escribí la primera línea vaga,
vaga, sin cuerpo, pura
tontería,
pura sabiduría
del que no sabe nada,
y vi de pronto
el cielo
desgranado
y abierto,
planetas,
plantaciones palpitantes,
la sombra perforada,
acribillada
por flechas, fuego y flores,
la noche arrolladora, el universo.

Y yo, mínimo ser,
ebrio del gran vacío
constelado,
a semejanza, a imagen
del misterio,
me sentí parte pura
del abismo,
rodé con las estrellas,
mi corazón se desató en el viento.

Pablo Neruda – Chile – (1904 – 1973)

Neruda, P. (2017) Isla Negra, A Notebook: A bilingual edition, Translated by Alistair Reid. ‘  (Poem). Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York. (page 30).

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