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from Las piedras del cielo / Skystone (1970)

by PabloNeruda

1

To harden the earth
is a stone's occupation-
til stone became
winged
and flew.
Those that survived
climbed
the lightning,
cried out
in the dark:
a watery token,
the violet light on a blade,
a meteor.

Our succulent
sky
holds more than the clouds
and the void, with it's odor of oxygen-
it holds a terrestrial stone,
it flashes out here and there
with its look of a dove
or a bell,
takes on magnitude,
the cutting edge of the wind:
an arrow in the phosphorous, a facet of salt on the sky.










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