I'm not into poetry actually, but from time to time I find a poem that I find beautiful and intriguing.
EnigmasPablo Neruda
You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with
his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent
bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
and I reply by describing
how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,
which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on
the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean
spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
in the deep places like a thread in the water?
I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its jewel boxes
is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the petal
hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.
I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.
I walked around as you do, investigating
the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.
---
I found the poem in english first, and I loved it, but now that I read it in the original spanish version I feel some of its meaning was lost
Me habeis preguntado que hila el crustaceo
entre sus patas de oro
y os respondo: El mar lo sabe.
Me decis, que espera la ascidia en su campana trasparente? Que espera?
Yo os digo, espera como vosotros el tiempo.
Me preguntais: a quien alcanza el abrazo del alga Macrocustis?
Indagadlo, indagadlo a cierta hora, en cierto mar que conozco.
Sin duda me preguntareis por el marfil maldito del narwhal,
para que yo os conteste de que modo el unicornio marino agoniza arponeado.
Me preguntais tal vez por las plumas alcionarias que tiemblan
en los puros origenes de la marca austral?
Y sobre la construccion cristalina del polipo habeis barajado, sin duda,
una pregunta mas, desgranandola ahora?
Quereis saber la electrica materia de las puas del fondo?
La armada estalactita que camina
quebrandose?
El anzuelo del pez pescador, la musica extendida?
en la profundidad como un hilo de agua?
Yo os quiero decir que esto lo sabe el mar,
que la vida en sus arcas
es ancha como la arena, innumerable y pura
y entre las uvas sanguinarias el tiempo ha pulido la dureza de un petalo,
la luz de la medusa y ha desgranado el ramo de sus hebras de corales desde una cornucopia de nacar infinito.
Yo no soy sino la red vacia que adelanta
ojos humanos, muertos en aquellas tinieblas,
dedos acostumbrados al triangulo, medidas
de un timido hemisferio de naranja.
Anduve como vosotros escarbando
la estrella interminable,
y en mi red, en la noche, me desperte desnudo, unica presa, pez encerrado en el viento.
