The Words

[tumbledstars]

It's the words that sing, they soar and descend. I bow to them. I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them. I love words so much. The ones I wait for greedily... they glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew... I stalk certain words. They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem. I catch them in midflight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives. And I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them. I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, like pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves. Everything exists in the word.

~ Pablo Neruda