The man who sought

I went out to find what I lost

in enemy cities:

closed to me were streets and doors,

I was attacked with fire and water,

thrown at me were excrements.

All I wanted was to find

toys broken in my dreams,

a pony made of crystal

or my watch disinterred.

No-one wanted to understand

my melancholy destiny,

my absolute disinterest.

In vain I explained to women

that I didn’t want to rob anybody,

nor murder their grandmothers.

They gave cries of fear at the sight

of me going out of a cupboard

or entering by the chimney.

Nevertheless, through long days

and nights of violet rain

I kept up my expeditions:

furtively crossed

across roofs and tiles

those hostile mansions

and even underneath the mattress

fought and fought against oblivion.

I never found what I sought.

No-one held my horse,

nor my loves, nor the rose

I lost like so many kisses

in my lover’s cincture.

I was incarcerated and hurt badly,

misunderstood and wounded

like an evident malefactor

and now I seek not my shadow.

I’m as serious as the others,

but I miss what I loved:

the foliage of sweetness

that falls off leaf by leaf

until you remain immobile,

truthfully nude.

Pablo Neruda