Explore "Cristóbal Miranda (Shoveler, Tocopilla)" by Pablo Neruda on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I met you, Cristóbal, on the barges in the bay, when the saltpeter comes down, to the sea, in the scorching attire of a November day.
I remember that static bearing, the metal hills, the still water.
And the bargeman alone, bathed in sweat, moving snow.
Nitrate snow, poured on the shoulders of sorrow, falling into the ships' blind bellies.
There, shovelers, heroes of an acid-etched dawn, subject to the fates of death, firm, receiving the torrential nitrate.
Cristóbal, this keepsake for you.
For the shovel comrades, in whose breasts acid enters, and murderous emanations, bloating hearts like vanquished eagles, until man falls, until man tumbles into the streets, into the pampa's broken crosses.
Enough said, Cristóbal, now this paper remembers you, all of you- bargemen in the bay, man blackened by the ships-my eyes accompany you on this shift and my soul's a shovel that rises loading and unloading blood and snow, beside you, desert lives.