dazzling lurch of the sea

I had a plan to post another Mexican poet today, but then I was reading Pablo Neruda, because...well, let's be honest, when am I not reading Pablo Neruda. So we're going with Pablo Neruda, and with this one because the beach was glorious today. I need at least 100 years to post all of Cien sonetos de amor. 

Al golpe de la ola contra la piedra indócil 

la claridad estalla y establece su rosa 

y el círculo del mar se reduce a un racimo, 

a una sola gota de sal azul que cae. 

Oh radiante magnolia desatada en la espuma, 

magnética viajera cuya muerte florece 

y eternamente vuelve a ser y a no ser nada: 

sal rota, deslumbrante movimiento marino. 

Juntos tú y yo, amor mío, sellamos el silencio, 

mientras destruye el mar sus constantes estatuas 

y derrumba sus torres de arrebato y blancura, 

porque en la trama de estos tejidos invisibles

del agua desbocada, de la incesante arena, 

sostenemos la única y acosada ternura.

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks 

the clear light bursts and enacts its rose, 

and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds, 

to one drop of blue salt, falling. 

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam, 

magnetic transient whose death blooms 

and vanishes—being, nothingness—forever: 

broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea. 

You and I, Love, together we ratify the silence, 

while the sea destroys its perpetual statues, 

collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness: 

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics, 

galloping water, incessant sand, 

we make the only permanent tenderness.

—Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), IX from 100 Love Sonnets, translated by Stephen Tapscott (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986).