National Poetry Month

Poem by Pablo Neruda, translated by Kenneth Rexroth

I remember you as you were that last autumn-
Your grey beret, your calm heart,
And the flames of sunset wrestling in your eyes,
And the leaves falling into the waters of your soul.

You clung to my arm like a vine.
The leaves caught up your slow calm voice-
Vertiginous hearth where my heart blazes-
Sweet blue hyacinth twisting over my soul.

I can feel your eyes, voyaging away, distant as that autumn,
Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart of a huntress-
Where all my deep agony migrated.
Where my happy kisses fell like embers.

The skies from shipboard, fields from the hills.
Your memory is of light, of smoke, of a still pool.
Deep in your eyes the twilights burned.
The dry leaves of autumn whirled in your soul.