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06/08/2005: Los verso del Capitán
Just by way of some background for those not familiar with these poems or Pablo Neruda he wrote these particular pieces about Matilde Urrutia. She married him 1955 and these express his passionate devotion to her as well as their lover’s quarrels. He received the Noble Prize in 1971, was well known in his native Chile as a fiery political poet and became the Chilean Ambassador to France in the 1970’s. He died in Santiago, Chile on September 23, 1973. These translations were done by Donald D. Walsh.
The Captain's Verses
Pablo Neruda , 1952
==========
YOUR FEET
When I can not look at your face
I look at your feet.
Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.
I know that they support you,
and that your gentle weight
rises upon them.
Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon the wind and upon
the waters,
until they found me.
===========
YOUR HANDS
When your hands go out,
love, toward mine,
what do they bring me flying?
Why did they stop
at my mouth, suddenly,
why do I recognize them
as if then, before,
I had touched them,
as if before they existed
they had passed over
my forehead, my waist?
Their softness came
flying over time,
over the sea, over the smoke,
over the spring, and when you placed
your hands on my chest,
I recognized those golden
dove wings,
I recognized that clay
and that color of wheat.
All the years of my life
I walked around looking for them.
I went up the stairs,
I crossed the roads,
trains carried me,
waters brought me,
and in the skin of the grapes
I thought I touched you.
The wood suddenly
brought me your touch,
the almond announced to me
your secret softness,
until your hands
closed on my chest
and there like two wings
they ended their journey.
Karen on 06.08.05 @ 12:47 PM CST
