Today the rains came, without any warning
I watched droplets forming, pooling on the ground
the trees dissolving into palest fog
into the quiet of this forest, void of birds
traveling off to some secret world
perhaps to some cavernous mountain hollow
with glorious wings, I dream to follow
through the darkened woods, hidden by ferns
through harrowing clouds to be one with birds
with gorgeous feathers, downy warm
among the flickers, pheasant and crow
to be an evening silhouette in the alpenglow
a skylark winging in a painted sky.

It is summer and soon the Perseid showers
I have gone from my desert home
I wander far from crowded towns
my feet in grassy, bee clover
deep summer, all daisy flowered
green leaves, wild blackberries
await the August sun fire.

Here amid the slowing of mars retrograde
of my love returning home too late
no long goodbye, only the weight
I watch oceans of seaweed sway
at night the phosphorescence
the lonesome of sea stars trailing.

Tree, I have come to shelter and with the rain to weep
I am soaked, barefoot, with mud running through
soft the moss, cool and cold
to soothe my heart that bleeds.
Our waxing nights of love and moons
now fallow, a field that burns
****** our hollow bed
of haunting, silent screams
too soon the fiery devil
too far my lover
the spring.

It was more like alabaster, but I could only be sure
of one thing; it was an exquisite lesson in anatomy
cold ancient, pale Roman stone, the arm half gone
strongly curved, the rippling of muscle, hair and bones
a man held by pillar, marble like legs of smoothest stone
his eyes deep set that wended near, then waywardly away
the kind that strangely follow sometimes linger into the next day
broad faced, cheekbones perfectly amid the shadows
and I don't mind saying while on my museum trip
though he was a statue, I thought to kiss
those divinely sculpted lips.

Pablo Neruda
(1904 - 1973)


Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?


http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/don-t-go-far-off/
(very good reader)

Tonight, with its blue moving stars
and mars overhead, in its bright blinking red
the breezing leaves upon the rooftop eaves, calling
a falling star, impossibly high catches the eye, while dying
and I dream to fly, flit and roam amid night's celestial home
but with tethered feet, can only gaze upon the sky, to drink
in the space within my mind, I try to be and not to think
but feel the distant seas, that crash in waves and never cease
the endless ages, ancient and modern ways of humanity
and tonight, I imagine you out there lying soft upon the grass
tracing the dying stars, reflecting on the things that have come to pass
knowing very soon I too, will leave in summer.

I think you are of clay
of red earth and water
smooth formed and forged
a vessel for holding fire
a warm copper bronze
sculpted, divinely poured
of ancient Roman origin
descended from Apollo
born of pure poetry and music
you walk the earth, a skilled hunter
with bow and arrow