One must speak clearly of what are clearly stones

One must speak clearly of what are clearly stones,

darkling stones,

ancestral rock, the blue ray

imprisoned in the sapphire,

the statuary crag of irregular

greatness, the submarine flight

of the emerald with its green blaze.

However, the pebble

or fulgurating merchandise,

the ruby’s virgin lightning

or the congealed wave of the coast

or the secretive jet that chose

the negative gleam of darkness,

I ask, mortal, perishing,

from what mother did they come, what sperm

volcanic, oceanic, fluvial,

what anterior flora, what aroma,

interrupted by the glacial light?

I am of those transitory men

who fleeing from love into love

stayed scalded, divvied out

in flesh and kisses, black words

eaten up by darkness:

I am incapable of such mysteries:

open my eyes and see nothing:

touch earth and continue the journey

amidst faggots or flora, aroma or water,

they transform into races of crystal,

forever into works of light.

Pablo Neruda