Exiles by Pablo Neruda

There are biting exiles; others are like hungry fire.

There are pains of the extinct homeland rising from below, from feet and roots- and man quickly drowns.

He no longer recognizes the thorns.

The guitar no longer makes music.

Air no longer exists for that mouth.

He can no longer live without earth, and then he falls headlong, not onto Earth, but into death.

I knew the exile of song, and that one, yes, holds an elixir, because one bleeds into the song.

The blood escapes and becomes song.

And the one who lost mother and father, the one who also lost his children, the one who lost the door to his house- he has nothing-not even a flag.

That man travels like a nomad.

I give a name to his pain and keep it in my dark box.

And the exile he battles, even in dreams, and while he eats, while he neither eats nor sleeps, while he walks and when he doesn't walk- it is not the exiled pain, but rather the hand which strikes until the stones of the wall listen and fall-and then there is bloodshed; this happens: such is man's victory.