The Forest by Pablo Neruda — Read

I looked for the tree's dead root to bury it over again.

I felt that in the air that hard hairy clump meant trouble to the traveler.

When I put it in the ground it quivered like a hand and once again perhaps, this time perhaps, it went back to live among roots.

I'm of that lost race that lives under the bells of the world.

I don't need eyes.

Thirst defines my country, and the blind water that feeds me.

Then, from the frayed wood,

I took the goodness turned up by storm or time.

I looked up. I looked deep in as if everything was watching.

I couldn't feel alone.

The forest needed me for its underground work.

And as I dug they watched me, leafy cotyledons, close-petaled tulips, drupes bunched together, wandering dandelions, storm-topped beeches.

They watched the quiet intent of my earth-stained hands digging a new hole for roots to resurrect.

Lupine and amaryllis towered over the ground up to the leaves and eyes of the rauli watching me, and the pristine, quivering maitén with its garlands of green water; and I in the jungle, guarding an irresponsible silence like an out-of-work butler with no tools or language.

Nobody knows that I work as a man who plants roots among strange things that rustle and others that suddenly whistle.

When the homogamous helianthuses form their characteristic cups, the whole vaginal jungle is a rich-smelling wineshop, and I go back and forth, scattering constellations of pollen in the looming silence.