In you the rivers sing

I know there are slightly varying translations of this famous Pablo Neruda poem ...

... but here is the version by William Merwin - taken from the pictured 2012 'selected poems' volume.

A more powerful evocation of love, and nature itself, is simply hard to imagine:


Ah Vastness of Pines ...

Ah vastness of pines, murmur of waves breaking,
slow play of lights, solitary bell,
twilight falling in your eyes, toy doll,
snail of the earth, the earth sings in you!

In you the rivers sing and my soul flees in them
as you desire, and you send it where you will.
Aim my road on your bow of hope
and in a frenzy I will flee my flock of arrows.

On all sides I see your waist of fog,
and your silence hunts down my afflicted hours;
my kisses anchor, and my moist desire nests
in you with your arms of transparent stone.

Ah your mysterious voice that love tolls and darkens
in the resonant and dying evening!
Thus in the deep hours I have seen, over the fields,
the ears of wheat tolling in the mouth of the wind.

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Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)

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