Matilde Urrutia, I’m leaving you here

Pablo Neruda

Note: Matilde Urrutia was wife of Pablo Neruda and died in 
1985

Matilde Urrutia, I’m leaving you here
all I had, all I didn’t have,
all I am, all I am not.
My love is a child crying,
reluctant to leave your arms,
I leave it to you forever–
you are my chosen one.

You are my chosen one,
more tempered by winds
than thin trees in the south,
a hazel in August;
for me you are as delicious
as a great bakery.
You have an earth heart
but your hands are from heaven.

You are red and spicy,
you are white and salty
like pickled onions,
you are a laughing piano
with every human note;
and music runs over me
from your eyelashes and your hair.
I wallow in your gold shadow,
I’m enchanted by your ears
as though I had seen them before
in underwater coral.
In the sea for your nails’ sake,
I took on terrifying fish . . . .

Sometime when we’ve stopped being,
stopped coming and going,
under seven blankets of dust
and the dry feet of death,
we’ll be close again, love,
curious and puzzled.
Our different feathers,
our bumbling eyes,
our feet which didn’t meet
and our printed kisses,
all will be back together,
but what good will it do us,
the closeness of a grave?
Let life not separate us:
and who cares about death?

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