Foundations

I came so early to this world

that I chose an unfinished land

where still unknown were

Norwegians and tomatoes:

the streets were empty

as if those had already gone

who had not yet even come,

and I learned to read in books

which no-one had even written yet:

the earth had not been founded

where I came to be born.

When my father built his house

I understood he did not understand

and had constructed a tree:

that was his idea of comfort.

At first I lived in the roots,

later in the foliage I learned

little by little to fly higher

in search of birds and apples.

I don’t know how I have no cage,

nor went clothed in a feather duster

when I spent my whole childhood

passing from branch to branch.

Later we founded the city

with an excess of side streets,

but with not one resident:

we invited foxes,

horses, flowers,

ancestral memories.

In vain in vain all of that:

we never met anyone at all

with whom to play on a corner.

Thus happy was my childhood

that is still not mended.

Pablo Neruda