This salt
in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me,
but
it sings,
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those solitudes
when I heard
the voice of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.
In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.
And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food. Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste infinitude.
(1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto,
was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway
employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later
his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried doña Trinidad Candia Malverde.
The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco,
where he also got to know Gabriela
Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him. At
the early age of thirteen he began to contribute some articles to the daily
"La Mañana", among them, Entusiasmo y Perseverancia - his
first publication - and his first poem.
In 1920, he became a contributor to the
literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen name of Pablo Neruda,
which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some
of the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found in his first published
book: Crepusculario (1923). The following year saw the publication of Veinte
poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada, one of his best-known and most
translated works. Alongside his literary activities, Neruda studied French
and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.
