And so, from night to night by Pablo Neruda

And so, from night to night, that long hour, the entire Chilean seaboard engulfed in darkness,

I fled from door to door.

Other humble homes, other hands in every crease of the country awaited my footsteps.

You passed a thousand times by that door that said nothing to you, by that unpainted wall, by those windows with wilted flowers.

The secret was for me: it was pulsing for me, it was the zones of coal soaked in martyrdom, it was in the coastal seaports beside the antarctic archipelago, perhaps it was (listen) in that sonorous street, amid the midday music of the streets, or beside the park, that window that no one distinguished amid the other windows, and that awaited me with a bowl of clear soup and its heart on the table.

All the doors were mine, they all said: "It's my brother, bring him to this humble home," while my country stained itself with so much punishment, like a press of bitter wine.

The little tinsmith came, the mother of those girls, the ungainly farmer, the man who made soap, the sweet lady novelist, the young man pinned like an insect to the desolate office came, and there was a secret sign on their doorway, a key defended like a tower that I might enter abruptly at night, afternoon, or day and not knowing anyone

I could say: "Brother, you know who I am,

I think you were expecting me. "