Residence on Earth (New Directions Paperbook)

by Pablo Neruda

  your pale fifteen-eyed head

  and your mouth of submerged blood.

  If I could fill town halls with soot

  and, sobbing, tear down clocks,

  it would be to see when to your house

  comes summer with its broken lips,

  come many people with dying clothes,

  come regions of sad splendor,

  come dead plows and poppies,

  come gravediggers and horsemen,

  come planets and maps with blood,

  come buzzards covered with ashes,

  come masked men dragging damsels

  pierced by great knives,

  come roots, veins, hospitals,

  springs, ants,

  comes night with the bed where

  a solitary hussar is dying among the spiders,

  comes a rose of hatred and pins,

  comes a yellowish vessel,

  comes a windy day with a child,

  come I with Oliverio, Norah,

  Vicente Aleixandre, Delia,

  Maruca, Malva Marina, Maria Luisa, and Larco,

  the Blond, Rafael Ugarte,

  Cotapos, Rafael Alberti,

  Carlos, Bebé, Manolo Altolaguirre,

  Molinari,

  Rosales, Concha Méndez,

  and others that slip my mind.

  Come, let me crown you, youth of health

  and butterflies, youth pure

  as a black lightningflash perpetually free,

  and just between you and me,

  now, when there is no one left among the rocks,

  let us speak simply, man to man:

  what are verses for if not for the dew?

  What are verses for if not for that night

  in which a bitter dagger finds us out, for that day,

  for that dusk, for that broken corner

  where the beaten heart of man makes ready to die?

  Above all at night,

  at night there are many stars,

  all within a river

  like a ribbon next to the windows

  of houses filled with the poor.

  Someone of theirs has died, perhaps

  they have lost their jobs in the offices,

  in the hospitals, in the elevators,

  in the mines,

  human beings suffer stubbornly wounded

  and there are protests and weeping everywhere:

  while the stars flow within an endless river

  there is much weeping at the windows,

  the thresholds are worn away by the weeping,

  the bedrooms are soaked by the weeping

  that comes wave-shaped to bite the carpets.

  Federico,

  you see the world, the streets,

  the vinegar,

  the farewells in the stations

  when the smoke lifts its decisive wheels

  toward where there is nothing but some

  separations, stones, railroad tracks.

  There are so many people asking questions

  everywhere.

  There is the bloody blindman, and the angry one, and the

  disheartened one,

  and the wretch, the thorn tree,

  the bandit with envy on his back.

  That’s the way life is, Federico, here you have

  the things that my friendship can offer you,

  the friendship of a melancholy manly man.

  By yourself you already know many things,

  and others you will slowly get to know.

  * * *

  *Neruda and Lorca became very close friends when Neruda was Chilean consul to the Spanish Republic. This ode, like much of Lorca’s poetry, has premonitions of death. The poem was published in 1935; Lorca was executed by the Nationalists in 1936.—D.D.W.

  ALBERTO ROJAS JIMENEZ VIENE VOLANDO

  Entre plumas que asustan, entre noches,

  entre magnolias, entre telegramas,

  entre el viento del Sur y el Oeste marino,

  vienes volando.

  Bajo las tumbas, bajo las cenizas,

  bajo los caracoles congelados,

  bajo las ultimas aguas terrestres,

  vienes volando.

  Más abajo, entre niñas sumergidas,

  y plantas ciegas, y pescados rotos,

  más abajo, entre nubes otra vez,

  vienes volando.

  Más allá de la sangre y de los huesos,

  más allá del pan, más allá del vino,

  más allá del fuego,

  vienes volando.

  Más allá del vinagre y de la muerte,

  entre putrefacciones y violetas,

  con tu celeste voz y tus zapatos húmedos,

  vienes volando.

  Sobre diputaciones y farmacias,

  y ruedas, y abogados, y navíos,

  y dientes rojos recién arrancados,

  vienes volando.

  Sobre ciudades de tejado hundido

  en que grandes mujeres se destrenzan

  con anchas manos y peines perdidos,

  vienes volando.

  Junto a bodegas donde el vino crece

  con tibias manos turbias, en silencio,

  con lentas manos de madera roja,

  vienes volando.

  Entre aviadores desaparecidos,

  al lado de canales y de sombras,

  al lado de azucenas enterradas,

  vienes volando.

  Entre botellas de color amargo,

  entre anillos de anís y desventura,

  levantando las manos y llorando,

  vienes volando.

  Sobre dentistas y congregaciones,

  sobre cines, y túneles y orejas,

  con traje nuevo y ojos extinguidos,

  vienes volando.

  Sobre tu cementerio sin paredes

  donde los marineros se extravían,

  mientras la lluvia de tu muerte cae,

  vienes volando.

  Mientras la lluvia de tus dedos cae,

  mientras la lluvia de tus huesos cae,

  mientras tu médula y tu risa caen,

  vienes volando.

  Sobre las piedras en que te derrites,

  corriendo, invierno abajo, tiempo abajo,

  mientras tu corazón desciende en gotas,

  vienes volando.

  No estás allí, rodeado de cemento,

  y negros corazones de notarios,

  y enfurecidos huesos de jinetes:

  vienes volando.

  Oh amapola marina, oh deudo mío,

  oh guitarrero vestido de abejas,

  no es verdad tanta sombra en tus cabellos:

  vienes volando.

  No es verdad tanta sombra persiguiéndote,

  no es verdad tantas golondrinas muertas,

  tanta region oscura con lamentos:

  vienes volando.

  El viento negro de Valparaiso

  abre sus alas de carbon y espuma

  para barrer el cielo donde pasas:

  vienes volando.

  Hay vapores, y un frío de mar muerto,

  y silbatos, y meses, y un olor

  de mañana lloviendo y peces sucios:

  vienes volando.

  Hay ron, tú y yo, y mi alma donde lloro,

  y nadie, y nada, sino una escalera

  de peldaños quebrados, y un paraguas:

  vienes volando.

  Allí está el mar. Bajo de noche y te oigo

  venir volando bajo el mar sin nadie,

  bajo el mar que me habita, oscurecido:

  vienes volando.

  Oigo tus alas y tu lento vuelo,

  y el agua de los muertos me golpea

  como palomas ciegas y mojadas:

  vienes volando.

  Vienes volando, solo, solitario,

  solo entre muertos, para siempre solo,

  vienes volando sin sombra y sin nombre,

  sin azúcar, sin boca, sin rosales,

  vienes volando.

  AL
BERTO ROJAS JIMENEZ COMES FLYING*

  Among frightening feathers, among nights,

  among magnolias, among telegrams,

  among the South wind and the maritime West,

  you come flying.

  Beneath the tombs, beneath the ashes,

  beneath the frozen snails,

  beneath the last terrestrial waters,

  you come flying.

  Farther down, among submerged girls,

  and blind plants, and broken fish,

  farther down, among clouds again,

  you come flying.

  Beyond blood and bones,

  beyond bread, beyond wine,

  beyond fire,

  you come flying.

  Beyond vinegar and death,

  among putrefaction and violets,

  with your celestial voice and your damp shoes,

  you come flying.

  Over delegations and drugstores,

  and wheels, and lawyers, and warships,

  and red teeth recently pulled,

  you come flying.

  Over sunken-roofed cities

  where huge women take down their hair

  with broad hands and lost combs,

  you come flying.

  Next to vaults where the wine grows

  with tepid turbid hands, in silence,

  with slow, red-wooden hands,

  you come flying.

  Among vanished aviators,

  beside canals and shadows,

  beside buried lilies,

  you come flying.

  Among bitter-colored bottles,

  among rings of anise and misfortune,

  lifting your hands and weeping,

  you come flying.

  Over dentists and congregations,

  over moviehouses and tunnels and ears,

  with a new suit and extinguished eyes,

  you come flying.

  Over your wall-less cemetery,

  where sailors go astray,

  while the rain of your death falls,

  you come flying.

  While the rain of your fingers falls,

  while the rain of your bones falls,

  while your marrow and your laughter fall,

  you come flying.

  Over the stones on which you melt,

  running, down winter, down time,

  while your heart descends in drops,

  you come flying.

  You are not there, surrounded by cement,

  and black hearts of notaries,

  and infuriated riders’ bones:

  you come flying.

  Oh sea poppy, oh my kinsman,

  oh guitar player dressed in bees,

  there can’t be so much shadow in your hair:

  you come flying.

  There can’t be so much shadow pursuing you,

  there can’t be so many dead swallows,

  so much dark lamenting land:

  you come flying.

  The black wind of Valparaiso

  opens its wings of coal and foam

  to sweep the sky where you pass:

  you come flying.

  There are ships, and a dead-sea cold,

  and whistles, and months, and a smell

  of rainy morning and dirty fish:

  you come flying.

  There is rum, you and I, and my heart where I weep,

  and nobody, and nothing, but a staircase

  of broken steps, and an umbrella:

  you come flying.

  There lies the sea. I go down at night and I hear you

  come flying under the sea without anyone,

  under the sea that dwells in me, darkened:

  you come flying.

  I hear your wings and your slow flight,

  and the water of the dead strikes me

  like blind wet doves:

  you come flying.

  You come flying, alone, solitary,

  alone among the dead, forever alone,

  you come flying without a shadow and without a name,

  without sugar, without a mouth, without rosebushes,

  you come flying.

  * * *

  *A longtime friend, poet, and dandy. One of his hobbies was making paper birds, an art he had learned from Miguel du Unamuno.—D.D.W.

  EL DESENTERRADO

  Homenaje al Conde de Villamediana

  Cuando la tierra llena de párpados mojados

  se haga ceniza y duro aire cernido,

  y los terrones secos y las aguas,

  los pozos, los metales,

  por fin devuelvan sus gastados muertos,

  quiero una oreja, un ojo,

  un corazón herido dando tumbos,

  un hueco de puñal hace ya tiempo hundido

  en un cuerpo hace tiempo exterminado y solo,

  quiero unas manos, una ciencia de uñas,

  una boca de espanto y amapolas muriendo,

  quiero ver levantarse del polvo inútil

  un ronco árbol de venas sacudidas,

  yo quiero de la tierra más amarga,

  entre azufre y turquesa y olas rojas

  y torbellinos de carbon callado,

  quiero una carne despertar sus huesos

  aullando llamas,

  y un especial olfato correr en busca de algo,

  y una vista cegada por la tierra

  correr detrás de dos ojos oscuros,

  y un oído, de pronto, como una ostra furiosa,

  rabiosa, desmedida,

  levantarse hacia el trueno,

  y un tacto puro, entre sales perdido,

  salir tocando pechos y azucenas, de pronto.

  Oh día de los muertos! oh distancia hacia donde

  la espiga muerta yace con su olor a relámpago,

  oh galerías entregando un nido

  y un pez y una mejilla y una espada,

  todo molido entre las confusiones,

  todo sin esperanzas decaído,

  todo en la sima seca alimentado

  entre los dientes de la tierra dura.

  Y la pluma a su pájaro suave,

  y la luna a su cinta, y el perfume a su forma,

  y, entre las rosas, el desenterrado,

  el hombre lleno de algas minerales,

  y a sus dos agujeros sus ojos retornando.

  Está desnudo,

  sus ropas no se encuentran en el polvo

  y su armadura rota se ha deslizado al fondo del infierno,

  y su barba ha crecido como el aire en otoño,

  y hasta su corazón quiere morder manzanas.

  Cuelgan de sus rodillas y sus hombros

  adherencias de olvido, hebras del suelo,

  zonas de vidrio roto y aluminio,

  cáscaras de cadáveres amargos,

  bolsillos de agua convertida en hierro:

  y reuniones de terribles bocas

  derramadas y azules,

  y ramas de coral acongojado

  hacen corona a su cabeza verde,

  y tristes vegetales fallecidos

  y maderas nocturnas le rodean,

  y en él aún duermen palomas entreabiertas

  con ojos de cemento subterráneo.

  Conde dulce, en la niebla,

  oh recién despertado de las minas,

  oh recién seco del agua sin río,

  oh recién sin arañas!

  Crujen minutos en tus pies naciendo,

  tu sexo asesinado se incorpora,

  y levantas la mano en donde vive

  todavía el secreto de la espuma.

  THE DISINTERRED ONE

  Homage to the Count of Villamediana*

  When the earth full of wet eyelids

  becomes ashes and harsh sifted air,

  and the dry farms and the waters,

  the wells, the metals,

  at last give forth their worn-out dead,

  I want an ear, an eye,

  a heart wounded and tumbling,

  the hollow of a dagger sunk some time ago


  in a body some time ago exterminated and alone,

  I want some hands, a science of fingernails,

  a mouth of fright and poppies dying,

  I want to see rise from the useless dust

  a raucous tree of shaken veins,

  I want from the bitterest earth,

  among brimstone and turquoise and red waves

  and whirlwinds of silent coal,

  I want to see a flesh waken its bones

  howling flames,

  and a special smell run in search of something,

  and a sight blinded by the earth

  run after two dark eyes,

  and an ear, suddenly, like a furious oyster,

  rabid, boundless,

  rise toward the thunder,

  and a pure touch, lost among salts,

  come out suddenly, touching chests and lilies.

  Oh day of the dead! Oh distance toward which

  the dead spike lies with its smell of lightning,

  oh galleries yielding up a nest

  and a fish and a cheek and a sword,

  all ground up amid confusion,

  all hopelessly decayed,

  all in the dry abyss nourished

  between the teeth of the hard earth.

  And the feather to its soft bird,

  and the moon to its film, and the perfume to its form,

  and, among the roses, the disinterred one,

  the man covered with mineral seaweed,

  and to their two holes his eyes returning.

  He is naked,

  his clothes are not in the dust

  and his broken skeleton has slipped to the bottom of hell,

  and his beard has grown like the air in autumn,

  and to the depths of his heart he wants to bite apples.

  From his knees and his shoulders hang

  scraps of oblivion, fibers of the ground,

  areas of broken glass and aluminum,

  shells of bitter corpses,