Ode To Wine
By Pablo Neruda
Wine color of day
wine color of night
wine with your feet of purple
or topaz blood,
wine,
starry child of the earth,
wine, smooth as a golden sword,
soft as ruffled velvet,
wine spiral-shelled and suspended,
loving, of the sea,
you’ve never been contained in one glass,
in one song, in one man,
choral, you are gregarious
and, at least, mutual.
memories on your wave
we go from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy graves,
and we weep transitory tears,
but your beautiful spring suit is different,
the heart climbs to the branches,
the wind moves the day,
nothing remains in your motionless soul.
Wine stirs the spring,
joy grows like a plant,
walls, large rocks fall,
abysses close up, song is born.
Oh thou, jug of wine, in the desert
with the woman I love,
said the old poet.
Let the pitcher of wine and its kiss to the kiss of love.
My love, suddenly,
your hip
is the curve of the wineglass
filled to the brim,
your breast is the cluster,
your hair the light of alcohol
your nipples, the grapes
your navel pure seal stamped on your belly of a barrel,
and your love the cascade of unquenchable wine,
the brightness that falls on my sense
the earthen splendor of life.
But not only love,
burning kiss,
of ignited heart-
vino de vida, you are also
fellowship, transparency,
chorus of discipline abundance of flowers.
I love the light of a bottle of intelligent wine
upon a table
when people are talking,
that they drink it,
that in each drop of gold
or ladle of purple,
they remember that autumn worked
until the barrels were filled with wine
and let the obscure man learn,
in the ceremony of his business,
to remember the earth and his duties,
to propagate the canticle of the fruit.