First Travelings by Pablo Neruda

When I first went to sea, I was inexhaustible.

I was younger than the whole world.

And on the seacoast there rose to receive me the endless tang of the universe.

I had no sense that the world existed.

My faith lay in a buried tower.

I had found so many things in so little, in my own twilit discoveries, in the sighs of love, in roots, that I was the displaced one, the wanderer, the poor proprietor of my own skeleton.

And I understood then that I was naked, that I had to dress myself.

I had never thought seriously about shoes.

I didn't speak any languages.

The only book I could read was the book of myself.

The only life I knew was my secret life.

And I understood that I couldn't summon myself because I wouldn't respond.

I had used up that chance.

Nevermore, nevermore, croaked the raven.

I had to fall back on things like clouds, on all the hats of the world, rivers, waiting rooms, doors, and names, so many names, that simply learning them would have taken my whole sacred life.

The world was full of women, jammed like a shop window, and given all the hair I learned, the breasts, the wonderful thighs,

I learned that Venus was no mere legend.

She was sure and firm, with two enduring arms, and her hard mother-of-pearl weathered my lusty genital ambition.

Everything was new to me. This whole planet was dying of sheer old age, but everything was opening for me to experience, to glimpse that lightning flash.

And with my little pony eyes