For you to hear me

.

For you to hear me

my words

thin themselves out, at times,

like the trails of gulls on the shore.

A necklace of bones, a crazed rattle

for your fingers smooth as grapes.

And I look at my words from a distance.

More than mine they are yours.

Like tendrils they climb my ancient suffering.

They climb, like this, inside damp walls.

It is you the guilty one in this blood-wet round.

They are escaping from my dark covert.

You pervade everything, you, pervade everything.

They live, before you, in the solitude you enter,

and are accustomed, more than you, to my sadnesses.

Now I want them to say what I want them to tell you,

for you to hear as I want you to hear me.

The winds of misery may still bring them down.

Hurricanes of dream may still make them tumble.

You attend other voices, in my voice of pain,

Cries, of ancient mouths: blood, of ancient pleas.

Love me. Don’t leave me, friend. Follow me.

Follow me, friend, in this wave of misery.

They go on being miserly, with your love, my words.

You enter everything, you, enter everything.

I make, out of all this, an infinite necklace,

for your white fingers, smooth as grapes.

.

~ Pablo Neruda