Death Alone

Pablo Neruda

Solitary Cemetaries
tombs full of soundless bones,
my heart, in a tunnel
darkly, darkly, darkly
like a shipwreck within we die,
our hearts drown,
our souls fall from our skin.

There are cadavers,
with feet of cold, sticky gravel,
deathly bones
a pure tone
a howling canine,
ringing bells in certain tombs,
growing in dampness like crying rain.

Sometimes I see,
sea-born coffins
sailing with pale corpses
girls with dead pig-tails,
flowery white bakers like angels,
pensive girls, wives of notaries,
coffins climbing the vertical river of death
the red river above,
sails blown by tones of death
billowing by silent sounds of death.

Death resounds
a footless shoe
a manless suit
it strikes like a stoneless, empty ring
it has no mouth, no tongue,no throat, but it must scream.
Her steps must intone,despite everything,
her dress resounds
silent as the forest.

I know not, I scarcely see,
but I feel her song as watery violets
earthy violets
for the face of Death is verdant
a verdant vision
the sharp dampness of violet leaves
colored by endless winter.

For death sweeps clean the earth
she licks the soil seeking our dead
our Maid of Winter
her tongue seeking death
threading the needle of death.

Death haunts our bedclothes:
in feathered mattresses, tawny blankets
reclining, then suddenly, she breathes:
intoning a dark melody, inhabiting the sheets,
as we seek a distant port
where she awaits, our Admiral.

Translated by Jerome Raymond Kraus (2008)
© Copyright Jerome Raymond Kraus (2008)