Sonnet LXXXVII
Three birds of the ocean, three rays, three shears,
crossed the cold sky towards Antofagasta,
so that the air was left shivering,
everything shivered like a wounded flag.
Solitude, grant me the sign of your eternal origin,
the barest track of the cruel birds,
and the tremor that without doubt comes before
the honey, the music, the sea, the birth.
(Solitude, sustained by a changeless face
like a heavy flower continually spreading
until it embraces the pure seethe of the sky.)
They flew, cold wings of the ocean, of the Archipelago
towards the sand of Northeast Chile.
And the night bolted home its heavenly bolt.
Translated by A. S. Kline
Cien sonetos de amor (1959)
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