Curse

I can't find any of my own works, so I am sharing this piece from a favorite of mine: Chilean poet and Nobel laureate for Literature Pablo Neruda (1971). Born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in 1904, he was a poet known for his emotionally-charged love poems and his political activism. (Photo credits: http://www.poets.org/).

Curse

by Pablo Neruda
Translated by Donald D. Walsh

Furrowed motherland, I swear that in your ashes
you will be born like a flower of eternal water
I swear that from your mouth of thirst will come to the air
the petals of bread, the spilt
inaugurated flower. Cursed,
cursed, cursed be those who with an ax and serpent
came to your earthly arena, cursed those
who waited for this day to open the door
of the dwelling to the moor and the bandit:
What have you achieved? Bring, bring the lamp,
see the soaked earth, see the blackened little bone
eaten by the flames, the garment
of murdered Spain.

"Curse" by Pablo Neruda, from Spain In Our Hearts, copyright © 1973 by Pablo Neruda, and Donald D. Walsh. Copyright © 2006 New Directions Publishing Corp.