History by Pablo Neruda — Read

For stone was the blood, for stone the weeping, the prayer, the procession: stone was free will.

Because in sweat and in fire the gods of stone were born and then the saint of rain grew, the lord of the struggles for the corn, for the earth, bird gods, serpent gods, the fertile, the unfortunate, all were born of stone:

America raised them with a thousand small golden hands, with eyes lost already, clouded with blood and neglect.

But my country was of light, a man alone came and went, without other gods than thunder: and there my heart grew:

I came from Araucania.

It was plant and seashore, diurnal like the hummingbirds, red like the crab, green as water in October, silvery as small fish, wild as a partridge, and thinner than an arrow was the southern land, worn away by the great winds of the sky, by the stars of the sea.

In Chile gods are not born,

Chile is the home of quarries.

So, in the rock grew arms and mouths, feet and hands, the stone became a monument: it cut open the cold, the month of June added petals and feathers and then time came and arrived, left and returned, returned and left, until it deserted, the kingdom without blood and without gods, filled with pure figures:

Stone illuminated my country with its natural statues.