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.

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