Farewell to the Offerings of the Sea

Return, return to the sea
from these pages!

Fishes, mollusks, seaweed,
escapees from the cold,
return to the waist
of the Pacific,
to the giddy kiss
of the wave, to the secret
logic of rock.

Oh hidden ones,
naked ones, submerged ones,
slippery ones,
it is the time
of division and separation:
paper reclaims me,
the ink, the inkwells,
the printing presses, the letters,
the illustrations,
the characters and numbers
jumbled in riverbeds from
where
they ambush me: the women,
and the men
want my love, ask for my company,
the children from Petorca,
from Atacama, from Arauco,
from Loncoche,
also want to play with the poet!

A train waits for me, a ship
loaded with apples,
an airplane, a plough,
some thorns.
Goodbye, harvested
fruits of the water, farewell,
imperially dressed
shrimps,
I will return, we will return
to the unity
now interrupted.
I belong to the sand:
I will return to the round sea
and to its flora
and to its fury:
but for now- I'll wander
whistling
through the streets.
[Pablo Neruda]