Pablo Neruda

1904–1973

4 poems

Title	Written	First line
A Callarse (Keeping Quiet)	1958	(Keeping Quiet) Translated by Stephen Mitchell Now we will all count to twelve and we will all keep still. This one time upon the earth, let’s not speak any language, let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be a delicious moment, without hurry, without locomotives, all of us would be together in a sudden uneasiness. The fisherman in the cold sea would do no harm to the whales and the peasant gathering salt would look at his torn hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars of gas, wars of fire, victories without survivors, would put on clean clothing and would walk alongside their brothers in the shade, without doing a thing. What I want shouldn’t be confused with final inactivity: life alone is what matters, I want nothing to do with death. If we weren’t unanimous about keeping our lives so much in motion, if we could perhaps do nothing for once, perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness, this never understanding ourselves and threatening ourselves with death, perhaps the earth is teaching us when everything seems to be dead and everything is alive. Now I will count to twelve and you keep quiet and I’ll go.
Deber Del Poeta (Poet's Obligation)	1962	(Poet’s Obligation) [https://youtu.be/aJ8yTw2v434?si=Td99WllijelN66gf\&t=51](https://youtu.be/aJ8yTw2v434?si=Td99WllijelN66gf&t=51) Translated by Alastair Reid To whoever is not listening to the seathis Friday morning, to whoever is cooped upin house or office, factory or womanor street or mine or harsh prison cell;to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,I arrive and open the door of his prison,and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,a great fragment of thunder sets in motionthe rumble of the planet and the foam,the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.So, drawn on by my destiny,I ceaselessly must listen to and keepthe sea's lamenting in my awareness,I must feel the crash of the hard waterand gather it up in a perpetual cupso that, wherever those in prison may be,wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,I may be there with an errant wave,I may move, passing through windows,and hearing me, eyes will glance upwardsaying "How can I reach the sea?"And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,the starry echoes of the wave,a breaking up of foam and quicksand,a rustling of salt withdrawing,the grey cry of the sea-birds on the coast.So, through me, freedom and the seawill make their answer to the shuttered heart.
Pido Silencio (I Ask For Silence)	1958	(I Ask For Silence) Translated by Heidi Fischbach Now if you’d leave me in peace. Now if you’d get on without me. I am going to close my eyes And I only want five things, five favorite roots. The first is love without end. The second is to see autumn. I cannot be without leaves flying away and returning to earth. Third is grave winter, the rain I loved, the caress of a fire in a wilderness of cold. In fourth place is summertime round like a watermelon. The fifth thing is your eyes, Matilde, my love, my beloved, I don’t want to sleep without your eyes, I don’t want to be without you seeing me: I’d trade springtime for your gaze still upon me. My friends, all of that is what I want. It’s nearly nothing and almost everything. And now if you wish you may leave. So much have I lived that one day you’ll have to make yourselves forget me, erasing the blackboard of me: my heart was endless. But just because I ask for silence don’t go thinking I’m about to die: au contraire\!: it so happens I am going to be lived. It just so happens that I am and I keep being. I will not be dying for within me grains will grow, first the kernels that break through the ground to see light, but mother earth is dark: and inside me I am dark: I am like a well in whose waters the nighttime leaves her stars and goes on alone through the fields. This is about my having lived so much that I want to live another much. Never have I felt such resonance, never have I had so many kisses. Now, as always, it is early. The light takes flight with her bees. Leave me alone with this day. I ask permission to be born.
Poesia (Poetry)	1964	(Poetry) And it was at that age… Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when, no they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me. I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire, and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe. And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.