Ode to Sand

Pure sand, how did you
accumulate, impalpable.
your divided grain
and sea belt, cup of the world,
planetary petal?
Were you gathering by the scream
of the waves and the wild birds
your eternal ring and dark unity?


Sand, you are
mother
of the ocean,
which in your innumerable rocks
deposited the seed of the species,
wounding
your nature with its green
bull’s seminal roars.
Naked on
your fragmentary skin
I feel
Your kiss, your murmur
running over me,
tighter than water,
air and time,
folding
into the lines of my body,
forming me again
and when
I continue roving
along the sea beach
the impress of my being stays for an instant
in your memory, sand,
until air,
wave
or night
erase my grey stamp in your domain.
Demolished silica,
scattered marble, crumbling
hoop,
pollen
from the sea depths,
marine dust,
you rise
in the silvery
dunes
like
the throat
of a dove,
you extend
in the desert,
sand
of the moon,
limitless,
circular and brilliant
like a ring,
dead,
only silence
until the wind whistles
and terrifyingly appears,
shaking
the pulverised stone,
the sheet
of salt and solitude,
and then
the sand, enraged,
sounds like a castle
crossed
by a squall of violins,
by the tumultuous velocity
of a sword in movement.


You fall
until man
gathers you
up with his spade
and in the building
mixture
serenely you appear,
returning
to stone,
to form,
building
a
dwelling
joined together again
to serve
the will of man.

............................................

By Pablo Neruda

Translated by George D. Schade