lost in the forest

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig

and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:

myabe it was the voice of the rain crying, 

a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed

deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,

a shout muffled by huge autumns,

by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig

sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance

climbed up though my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind

cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood -

and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

~ Pablo Neruda

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