Pablo Neruda

I think it would be best to begin sharing some of the poetry I have found to be powerful and compelling before I start sharing my own. I don't know why I think this would be best - perhaps I just don't have much confidence in my own ability to write. Anyway, the piece I have posted here comes from a man named, Pablo Neruda. Neruda was born in Parral, central Chile in 1907, and he lived until 1973. He is an internationally celebrated poet; and in 1971 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

Although I have been in possession of some of his work for years, I have only recently discovered a love for Neruda's poetry; his poetry is so rich in imagery, and he has a very unique and provocative way of glorifying the human experience. One feels how Neruda must have reveled and absorbed life around him through his poetry; and for the past three months or so, I have been absorbing him. I highly recommend him, and I hope you enjoy the poem I have selected to display. 

from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

XIV

Every day you play with the light of the universe. 

Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.

You are more than this white head that I hold tightly

as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.

Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. 

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?

Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.

The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.

Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. 

The rain takes off her clothes. 

The birds go by, fleeing.

The wind. The wind.

I can contend only against the power of men. 

The storm whirls dark leaves

and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky. 

You are here. Oh, you do not run away. 

You will answer me to the last cry.

Cling to me as though you were frightened.

Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,

and even your breasts smell of it.

While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies

I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, 

my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.

So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,

and over our heads the gray light unwinds in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you. 

A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.

I go so far as to think that you own the universe.

I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, 

dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want

to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.