Ode to Life
Pablo Neruda
The entire night
pain was hitting me
like an axe,
but then a dream came
and washed it all away
as a dark river
over blood-stained stones.Today again I am alive.
Again I’m lifting you,
life,
upon my shoulders.Oh life, clear glass,
all of a sudden
you’re full
of muddy waters
and lifeless wine,
of agony, of losses,
of frightening spiderwebs,
and many believe
you’ll keep this ghastly tint
forever.It’s not true!
A slow night passes,
a quick minute passes
and everything changes.
Life’s chalice
gleams once more
with transparent brilliance.
The wide quest
awaits us.
In a moment, the doves are born.
Again the light reigns over the earth.
Life, the poor
old poets
believed you to be bitter.They wouldn’t get up from their bed
and face with you
the wind of the world.They were beaten,
they hid away from you.They dug themselves
a dark hole
and drowned their sorrows
in a solitary well.That’s not true, life.
You are
beautiful
like my beloved;
and between your breasts
there’s a scent of spearmint .
Life,
you are
a complete machine,
happiness, howling
of a storm, tenderness
of an exquisite oil.Life,
you are like a vineyard:
you treasure light and you give it back
transformed in grapes.
Whoever disowns you
should wait
a minute or a night,
an year long or short,
should let go
of its false solitude,
and get back to searching and fighting,
joining hands with other hands,
not accepting or flattering misfortune
but instead remolding it,
giving it the form
of a wall,
like the stone-cutter with a stone.
Cut down misfortune into pieces,
and make yourself
a pair of trousers!
Life
awaits us
all,
who love
the wild scent
of sea and spearmint
nestled between its breasts.
Translation by LifeMaker —
