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Finale

By Pablo Neruda

Matilde, years or days   
sleeping, feverish,   
here or there,
gazing off,
twisting my spine,   
bleeding true blood,   
perhaps I awaken   
or am lost, sleeping:
hospital beds, foreign windows,
white uniforms of the silent walkers,
the clumsiness of feet.

And then, these journeys   
and my sea of renewal:   
your head on the pillow,   
your hands floating
in the light, in my light,   
over my earth.

It was beautiful to live   
when you lived!

The world is bluer and of the earth   
at night, when I sleep
enormous, within your small hands.

Reprinted from The Sea and the Bells (2002) by Pablo Neruda, translated by William O’Daly. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.

Poet Bio

Black and white photograph of Pablo Neruda.

Born Ricardo Eliezer Neftali Reyes y Basoalto, Pablo Neruda adopted the pseudonym under which he would become famous while still in his early teens. He grew up in Temuco in the backwoods of southern Chile. Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the twentieth century. His work has been translated into dozens of languages.

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