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Soneto LXXIII | Poem by Pablo Neruda

 

Pablo Neruda
translated by Jodey Bateman

 

SONETO LXXVIII

   I don't have a "never", I don't have an "always". 
   In the sand 
   Victory left its forgotten footprints. 
   I'm a poor man ready to love others who are like me. 
   I don't know who you are. I love you. I don't give or sell thorns. 

   Someone perhaps may know that I didn't weave bloody 
   Crowns, that I fought against mockery 
   And that truly I filled the high tide of my soul. 
   I gave doves as repayment for vileness. 

   I don't have a "never" because 
   I was, am, will be unique. And in the name 
   Of my changing love, I proclaim purity. 

   Death is only a stone of forgetting. 
   I love you, I kiss your mouth of happiness. 
   Let's bring the wood and make fire on the mountain. 
 


 

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Other Jodey Bateman translations of Pablo Neruda:
I'll Explain Some Things
Soneto LXXIII
What Spain Was Like
An Ode For Ironing
Beasts
Ode to a Woman Gardening
Ode To Bird Watching
Ode to Broken Things
Ode to Clothing / Oda al Traje
Ode to Olive Oil / Oda al Aceite
Ode to Some Yellow Flowers
Ode to the Artichoke
Ode to the Dictionary
Ode to the Lemon
Ode to the Piano
Ode to the Smell of Wood
Opium In The East (excerpt)
Poem Twenty
GAUTAMA CHRIST
For Everybody
From the Heights of Maccho Picchu
Poems by Pablo Neruda, Pulitizer Prize winner
Statues
Status Report
The Arrival in Madrid
The Heavenly Poets
The Old Women of the Ocean
The Turtle
To Sit Down
To the Foot From Its Child
Triangles