Rootsie

GENERAL => Poetry => Topic started by: Rootsie on February 17, 2005, 09:30:23 PM



Title: The White Man's Burden  by Pablo Neruda
Post by: Rootsie on February 17, 2005, 09:30:23 PM
The White Mans Burden
by Pablo Neruda

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent