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Ode to Clothing / Oda al Traje | Poem by Pablo Neruda

 
Oda al Traje por Pablo Neruda

Cada mañana espreas
Traje, sobre una silla
Que te llene
Mi vanidad, mi amor
Mi esperanza, mi cuerpo
Apenas
Salgo del sueño
Me despido del agua
Entro en tus magas
Mis piernas buscan
El hueco de tus piernas
Y así embrazado
Por tu fidelidad infatigable
Salgo a pisar en el pasto
Entro en la poesía
Miro por las ventanas
Las cosas
Los hombres, las mujeres
Los hechos y las luchas
Me van formando
Me van haciendo frente
Labrandome las manos
Abriéndome los ojos
Gastándome la boca
Y así,
Traje,
Yo también voy formándote
Sacandote los codos
Rompiéndote los hilos
Y así tu vida crece
A imagen de mi vida
Al viento
Ondulas y resuenas
Como sifueras mi alma.
En los malos minutos
Te ad hieres
A mis huesos
Vacío, por la noche
La oscuridad, el sueño
Pueblan con sus fantasmas
Tus alas y las mías
Yo pregunto
Si un día
Una bala
Del enemigo
Te dejara una mancha de mi sangre
Y entonces
Morrirías conmigo
O tal vez
No sea todo
Tan dramático
Sino simple
Y te irás enfermando,
Traje,
Conmigo
Envejeciendo
Conmigo, con mi cuerpo
Y juntos
Entraremos
A la tierra.
Por eso
Cada día
Te saludo
Con reverencia y luego
Me abrazas y te olivido
Porque uno solo somos
Y seguiremos siendo
Frente al viento, en la noche,
Las calles, ola hucha
Un solo cuerpo
Tal vez, tal vez, una vez immóvil.

Ode to Clothing by Pablo Neruda

Each morning you’re waiting
My clothing, on a chair
For me to fill you
With my vanity, my love
My hope, my body
I hardly
Have gotten out of sleep
I say goodbye to the water
I enter into your sleeves
My legs look for
The hollowness of your legs
And so embraced
By your tireless faithfulness
I go out to walk in the grass
I enter into poetry
I look through windows
At things
Men, women,
Deeds and struggles
Keep forming me
Keep coming against me
Laboring with my hands
Opening my eyes
Using up my mouth
And so,
Clothing,
I also keep forming you
Poking out your elbows
Snapping your threads
And so your life grows
Into the image of my live.
In the wind
You ripple and rustle
As if you were my soul.
In bad minutes
You stick
To my bones
Empty, through the night
Darkness, sleep
Populate with their fantasies
Your wings and mine.
I ask
If one day
A bullet
From the enemy
Might leave a spot of my blood on you
And then
You would die with me
Or maybe
It won’t all be
So dramatic
But simple
And you’ll just get feeble,
Clothing,
With me
Growing old
With me, with my body
And together
We will enter
The earth.
That’s why
Every day
I greet you
With reverence and then
You embrace me and I forget you
Because we are just one
And we’ll keep going on together
Against the wind, in the night
The streets, or the struggle
One single body
Maybe, maybe, some time will be immobile.

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Other Jodey Bateman translations of Pablo Neruda:
I'll Explain Some Things
Soneto LXXIII
What Spain Was Like
An Ode For Ironing
Beasts
Ode to a Woman Gardening
Ode To Bird Watching
Ode to Broken Things
Ode to Clothing / Oda al Traje
Ode to Olive Oil / Oda al Aceite
Ode to Some Yellow Flowers
Ode to the Artichoke
Ode to the Dictionary
Ode to the Lemon
Ode to the Piano
Ode to the Smell of Wood
Opium In The East (excerpt)
Poem Twenty
GAUTAMA CHRIST
For Everybody
From the Heights of Maccho Picchu
Poems by Pablo Neruda, Pulitizer Prize winner
Statues
Status Report
The Arrival in Madrid
The Heavenly Poets
The Old Women of the Ocean
The Turtle
To Sit Down
To the Foot From Its Child
Triangles