Come with me, I Said and No One Knew

Neruda....writes.

Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me,
only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

the geysers flooding from deep in its vault:
in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,
of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.


tis the birth centenary of this man, often called the saddest of men. we read his poems get poultices and ointments for our pains, but can anyof us do anything to the sorrows of his, that time experiences the world around had borne in him...