Poem by Neruda

This is a translation of a Neruda poem, an ode. Even for a translation, this poem shows a masterful articulation of the delight in the everyday that can really sparkle. I sometimes think that the most powerful poetry shows us something beautiful about our everyday lives. This is a poem like that.

Soap,
I bring you
near my face,
and your snowy perfume
seems foreign to me.
I don’t know the land
of your origin,
aroma,
do you come from
provincial turf?
Or from my gorgeous cousin?
From laundry in a trough
soaking, or from the starry hands
of a chill?
Or from those lilacs,
oh those lilacs?
Or from the eyes of
Maria, the farm girl?
From branches, full and heavy,
with green plums?
From the soccer field
or from the bathroom
under the trembling willows?
Do you smell like arbors,
like sweet love,
or a saint’s day cake?
Do you spread the aroma
of a dewy heart?

What do you bring me,
soap?
To my nostrils
suddenly
in the morning
before entering dawn’s
waters,
to leave through the streets
among men overwhelmed
by the burden of their merchandise?
What perfume of a distant
town,
petticoat flowers,
honey of wild girls?
Or maybe
it is the old-fashioned
essence of the
general store
and foodstuffs,
strong white linens
pressed in the hands of country folk,
the happy
plushness
of spun sugar,
or my uncle and aunt’s
kitchen cupboard,
or a red carnation
like a ray,
like a crimson arrow?

Is that
your brisk
bouquet
of bargain
stores,
of an unforgettable colony,
of beauty parlors,
of a pure province,
of immaculate water?

Soap,
you
are
pure delight,
fleeting fragrance
slipping like a shipwreck,
like a blind fish
in the profundities of the bathtub.