Today is also

Blooms this winter day

with just one dead rose,

night prepares its ship

petals drop from the sky

and gather again in a cup.

I don’t know how to say it otherwise:

night black, day red,

and I receive the seasons

with a poet’s courtesy:

I await the punctual arrival

of the verbal swallows

and keep a guard of steel

upon the doors of autumn.

That’s why winter unforeseen

surprised me in its accident

like the discouraged smoke

of the memory of a battle:

it’s not the word ailing,

it’s not lesson, it’s not misfortune,

it’s like a sound in the woods,

like a drum under rain.

The fact is my theme changes

with the color of the morning.

Pablo Neruda