The Same
Pablo Neruda
It costs much to grow old:
I’ve fondled the Springs
like sticks of new furniture
with the wood still sweet to the smell, suave
in the grain, and hidden away in its lockers,
I’ve stored my wild honey.
That’s why the bell tolled
bearing its sound to the dead,
out of range of my reason:
one grows used to one’s skin,
the cut of one’s nose, one’s good looks,
while summer by summer, the sun
sinks in it’s brazier.
Noting the sea’s health,
its insistence and turbulence,
I kept skimming the beaches;
now seated on waves
I keep the bitter green smell
of a lifetime’s apprenticeship
to live on in the whole of my motion.