Discover the Mysteries of Pablo Neruda's 'Enigmas' 🐚

You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with <br /> his golden feet? <br />I reply, the ocean knows this. <br />You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent <br /> bell? What is it waiting for? <br />I tell you it is waiting for time, like you. <br />You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms? <br />Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know. <br />You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal, <br /> and I reply by describing <br />how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies. <br />You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers, <br />which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides? <br />Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on <br /> the crystal architecture <br />of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now? <br />You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean <br /> spines? <br /> The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks? <br /> The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out <br /> in the deep places like a thread in the water? <br /> <br /> I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its <br /> jewel boxes <br /> is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure, <br /> and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the <br /> petal <br /> hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light <br /> and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall <br /> from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl. <br /> <br /> I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead <br /> of human eyes, dead in those darknesses, <br /> of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes <br /> on the timid globe of an orange. <br /> <br /> I walked around as you do, investigating <br /> the endless star, <br /> and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, <br /> the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind. <br /> <br /> <br />Translated by Robert Bly<br /><br />Pablo Neruda<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/enigmas/