"The Son" By Pablo Neruda Ah son, do you know, do you know where you come from? From a lake with white and hungry gulls. Next to the water of winter she and I raised a red bonfire wearing out our lips from kissing each other's souls, casting all into the fire, burning our lives. That's how you came into the world. But she, to see me and to see you, one day crossed the seas and I, to clasp her tiny waist, walked all the earth, with wars and mountains, with sands and thorns. That's how you came into the world. You come from so many places, from the water and the earth, from the fire and the snow, from so far away you journey toward the two of us, from the terrible love that has enchained us, that we want to know what you're like, what you say to us, because you know more about the world we gave you. Like a great storm we shook the tree of life down to the hidden-most fibers of the roots and you appear now singing in the foliage, in the highest branch that with you we reach. |