What hope to consider, what pure foreboding,

what definitive kiss to bury in the heart,

to submit to the origins of homelessness and intelligence,

smooth and sure over the eternally troubled waters?

What vital, speedy wings of a new dream angel

to install on my sleeping shoulders for perpetual security,

in such a way that the path through the stars of death

be a violent flight begun many days and months and centuries ago?

Suppose the natural weakness of suspicious, anxious creatures

all of a sudden seeks permanence in time and limits on earth,

suppose the accumulated ages and fatigues implacably

spread like the lunar wave of a just-created ocean

over lands and shorelines tormented deserted.

Oh, let what I am keep on existing and ceasing to exist,

and let my obedience align itself with such iron conditions

that the quaking of deaths and of births doesn’t shake

the deep place I want to reserve for myself eternally.

Let me, then, be what I am, wherever and in whatever weather,

rooted and certain and ardent witness,

carefully, unstoppably, destroying and saving himself,

openly engaged in his original obligation.

Pablo Neruda