Enigma - poem

A poem by Pablo Neruda

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Enigmas

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You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with

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his golden feet?

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I reply, the ocean knows this.

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You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent

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bell? What is it waiting for?

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I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.

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You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?

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Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.

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You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,

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and I reply by describing

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how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.

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You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,

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which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?

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Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on

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the crystal architecture

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of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?

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You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean

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spines?

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The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?

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The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out

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in the deep places like a thread in the water?

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I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its

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jewel boxes

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is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,

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and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the

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petal

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hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light

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and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall

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from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

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I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead

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of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,

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of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes

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on the timid globe of an orange.

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I walked around as you do, investigating

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the endless star,

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and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,

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the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

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Translated by Robert Bly

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Pablo Neruda

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