The Sadder Century by Pablo Neruda

The century of émigrés, the book of homelessness- gray century, black book.

This is what I ought to leave written in the open book, digging it out from the century, tinting the pages with spilled blood.

I lived the abundance of those lost in the jungle: in the jungle of punishment.

I counted the cutoff hands and the mountains of ash and the fragmented cries and the without-eyes glasses and the headless hair.

Then I searched the world for those who lost their country, pointlessly carrying their defeated little flags, their Stars of David, their miserable photographs.

I too knew homelessness.

But as a seasoned wanderer,

I returned empty-handed to this sea that knows me well.

But others remain and are still at bay, leaving behind their loved ones, their errors, thinking maybe but knowing never again and this is how I ended up sobbing the dusty sob intoned by the homeless.

This is the way I ended celebrating with my brothers (those who remain) the victorious building, the harvest of new bread.