I'm Explaining a Few Things

I’m Explaining a Few Things

by Pablo Neruda

You will ask: But where are the lilacs?

And the metaphysics covered with poppies?

And the rain that often struck

his words, filling them

with holes and birds?

I am going to tell you what’s happening to me.

I lived in a barrio

of Madrid, with bells,

with clocks, with trees.

From there you could see

the parched face of Castile

like an ocean of leather.

My house was called

the house of flowers, because from everywhere

geraniums burst: it was

a beautiful house,

with dogs and children.

Raul, do you remember?

Do you remember, Rafael?

Federico, do you remember

under the ground,

do you remember my house with balconies

where the June light drowned the flowers in your mouth?

Brother, brother!

Everything

was loud voices, salt of goods,

crowds of pulsating bread,

marketplaces in my barrio of Arguelles with its statue

like a pale inkwell set down among the hake:

oil flowed into spoons,

a deep throbbing

of feet and hands filled the streets,

meters, liters, the hard

edges of life,

heaps of fish,

geometry of roofs under a cold sun in which

the weathervane grew tired,

delirious fine ivory of potatoes,

tomatoes, more tomatoes, all the way to the sea.

And one morning all was burning

and one morning bonfires

sprang out of the earth

devouring humans,

and from then on fire,

gunpowder from then on,

and from then on blood.

Bandidos with planes and Moors,

bandidos with rings and duchesses,

bandidos with black friars signing the cross

coming down from the sky to kill children,

and in the streets the blood of the children

ran simply, like children’s blood.

Jackals the jackal would despise,

stones the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,

vipers the vipers would abominate.

Facing you I have seen the blood

of Spain rise up

to drown you in a single wave

of pride and knives.

Treacherous,

generals:

look at my dead house,

look at Spain broken:

from every house burning metal comes out

instead of flowers,

but from every crater of Spain

comes Spain

from every dead child comes a rifle with eyes,

from every crime bullets are born

that will one day will find out in you

the site of the heart.

You will ask: why doesn’t his poetry

Speak to us of dreams, of leaves

of the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets,

come and see

the blood in the streets,

come and see the blood

in the streets!