a land of kisses and volcanoes

The thing about Pablo Neruda, who remains one of my favorite poets in any language, is that he wrote a lot of really exceptional poetry, but with a couple of exceptions I almost never post anything that isn't from Cien sonetos de amor. This is because I believe strongly that Cien sonetos de amor is one of the greatest sonnet cycles ever written. National Poetry Month isn't something I do only to have an excuse to post one Neruda sonnet per year, but it's not...not that, either.

For Lucy, of course.

No te toque la noche ni el aire ni la aurora,
sólo la tierra, la virtud de los racimos,
las manzanas que crecen oyendo el agua pura,
el barro y las resinas du tu país fragante.

Desde Quinchamalí donde hicieron tus ojos
hasta tus pies creados para mí en la Frontera
eres la greda oscura que conozco:
en tus caderas tuco de nuevo todo el trigo.

Tal vez tú no sabías, araucana,
que cuando antes de amarte me olvidé de tus besos
mi corazón quedó recordando tu boca

y fui como un herido por las calles
hasta que comprendí que había encontrado,
amor, mi territorio de besos y volcanes.


I did not hold your night, or your air, or the dawn:
only the earth, the truth of the fruit in clusters,
the apples that swell as they drink the sweet water,
the clay and the resins of your sweet-smelling land.

From Quinchamalí where your eyes began
to the Frontera where your feet were made for me,
you are my dark familiar clay:
holding your hips, I hold the wheat in its fields again.

Woman from Arauco, maybe you didn't know
how before I loved you I forgot your kisses.
But my heart went on, remembering your mouth—and I went on

and on through the streets like a man wounded,
until I understood, Love: I had found
my place, a land of kisses and volcanoes.

—Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), V from Cien sonetos de amor, or One Hundred Love Sonnets, translated by Stephen Tapscott (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986).