Neruda And Vallejo: Selected Poems Part 23

fallen things, medallions, kindnesses,

parachutes, kisses.

It is only the pa.s.sage from one day to another,

a single bottle moving over the seas,

and a dining room where roses arrive,

a dining room deserted

as a fish-bone; I am speaking of

a smashed cup, a curtain, at the end

of a deserted room through which a river pa.s.ses

dragging along the stones. It is a house

set on the foundations of the rain,

a house of two floors with the required number of windows,

and climbing vines faithful in every particular.

I walk through afternoons, I arrive

full of mud and death,

dragging along the earth and its roots,

and its indistinct stomach in which corpses

are sleeping with wheat,

metals, and pushed-over elephants.

But above all there is a terrifying,

a terrifying deserted dining room,

with its broken olive oil cruets,

and vinegar running under its chairs,

one ray of moonlight tied down,

something dark, and I look

for a comparison inside myself:

perhaps it is a grocery store surrounded by the sea

and torn clothing from which sea water is dripping.

It is only a deserted dining room,

and around it there are expanses,

sunken factories, pieces of timber

which I alone know,

because I am sad, and because I travel,