Slums (Sad tune)

Walking up San Antonio
I saw the quietude of poverty:
creaking were the broken hinges,
the weary doors wanted
to go whimper or sleep.
Below the broken panes
in the windows, some flower,
a bitter and thirsty geranium,
was taking out for a walk along the street
its dirty orange fire.

The children of the silence that
from their black eyes looked at me
as if watching from a well,
from forgotten waters.

Suddenly entered the street the wind
as if it sought its house.
Dead papers stirred,
dust, sluggishly,
changed places,
a rag in the broken window was shaken
and everything continued as it was:
the immobile street, the eyes
that watched me from the well,
the houses that did not seem
to expect anyone, the doors
already demolished and bare:
everything was hard and dusty:
was dead, was alive,
wanted to die and be born.

Was preparing for the fire
the timber of poverty.

 

 Pablo Neruda