too many names

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays
and the week with the whole year.
Time cannot be cut
with your weary scissors,
and all the names of the day
are washed out by the waters of night. 

No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.
They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
of Chiles and of Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.

I'm aware of the earth's skin
and I know that it doesn't have a name.


When I lived with the roots
I liked them more than the flowers,
and when I talked with a stone
it rang like a bell.


The spring is so long
that is lasts all winter:
time lost its shoes:
a year contains four centuries.


When I sleep all these nights,
what am I named or not named?
And when I wake up who am I
if I wasn't I when I slept?


This means that we have barely
disembarked into life,
that we've only just now been born,
let's not fill our mouths
with so many uncertain names,
with so many sad labels,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much yours and mine,
with so much signing of papers.


I intend to confuse things,
to unite them, make them new-born,
intermingle them, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the unity of the ocean,
a generous wholeness,
a fragrance alive and crackling.





~ Pablo Neruda
English version by Anthony Kerrigan

 image by Chris Behling