For this week’s Translation Tuesday, we bring you a poem by the inimitable Pablo Neruda, translated from the Spanish by Wally Swist. Oscillating between the grand and the mundane, but never stinting on lavish detail, the poet draws an entire world out of his relationship to wood—the elemental matter from which so much of our world, from houses and coffins to ships and railroad ties, is fashioned. Dwelling in particular on the physical scene of trees being felled, Neruda not only pays vivid homage to the labor of woodcutting, but also illustrates the intimate connection between the world of human industry and the natural environment from which it arises—a connection that is more salient than ever, in our current age of ecological collapse. Read on!

Oh, how much I know
and recognize
among all things
wood is
my best friend.
I carry around the world
on my body, on my clothes,
scent of sawmill,
aroma of red boards.
My chest, my senses
feel impregnated
in my childhood
of falling trees,
of great forests
of future construction. READ MORE…