Under the pines, the earth concocts
small unsullied things:
slim grasses
from whose threads
minuscule lanterns hang,
mysterious capsules
plump with lost air,
and shadows
are different there,
filtered 
and flowery,
long green needles scattered
by the wind attacking and disheveling
the hair of pine trees.
On the sand
stand 
fragmentary petals,
calcified bark,
blue pieces 
of dead wood,
leaves the patience
of beetle-like woodcutters
moves around, thousands
of minimal cups
left behind by the eucalyptus
over
your
cold and fragrant
silhouette
and herbs
are
like flannels 
planted
with the softness
of gloves,
sticks
of proud spines,
wiry pavilions 
of dark acacia
and flowers the color of wine,
bulrush, heads of corn,
thickets,
harsh stems united like
locks on the sand,
round
stems
of somber green
cut with scissors, 
and amidst the tall yellowness
suddenly
while shooting skyward
a rustic circumference of gold,
the tiger-flower flourishes
with three tongues
of ultraviolet love.

Datitla sand
united to the open statuary
of La Paz, in the first
waves of the gray Atlantic,
deliver beloved solitude,
you not only return me
to the penetrating
smell and movement
of sea pine,
not only
to the honey of love and its deliciousness,
but to the purest circumstances
on earth:
to the dray and wild
Flora of the Sea, Air,
and Silence.

Excerpted from All the Odes: A Bilingual Edition by Pablo Neruda, edited by Ilan Stavans, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. © 2013 by Pablo Neruda and Fundación Pablo Neruda. Introduction © 2013 by Ilan Stavans. All rights reserved.