Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: ” La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”.

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

Tonight I can write the saddest of lines.
But these words above never were mine.

I encountered death as an infant.
I created myself as someone I’m not.
I wasted my gifts and took the wrong turnings.
All that I loved most faded away.
Sometimes it’s hard to put food on the table.
Each day is a struggle. I think I might break.
Are these tired words sad enough for you yet?

Let’s step up the horror, in case we forget.
Seven million people died of cancer last year.
Five thousand people sleep rough every night.
One hundred elephants are slaughtered each day
They hack out their jaws to trade in the ivory.
The ocean’s polluted and forests are dying.
The politicians are lying.
No one takes action.
Everyone’s looking for things they can’t have.

Don’t speak to me of her love you once had
or play with the thought of her infinite eyes
and the way that you lost her love and ask why.
Pablo Neruda I hear you complaining.
Pablo Neruda silence your cries.
Each moment of love is a gift. Don’t expect it.
There’s perspective above,
in those trembling blue stars.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The quote in Spanish is from “Poema 20” and is part of “Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada” (twenty love poems and a desperate song) from Pablo Neruda that was published in Santiago de Chile in 1924.