Perhaps, perhaps oblivion on earth, like a mantle

can develop growth and nourish life

(maybe), like dark humus in the forest.

Perhaps, perhaps man, like a blacksmith, seeks

live coals, the hammering of iron on iron,

without entering the coal’s blind cities,

without closing his eyes, not sounding

the depths, waters, minerals, catastrophes.

Perhaps, but my plate’s another, my food’s distinct:

my eyes didn’t come to bite oblivion:

my lips open over all time, and all time,

not just part of time has consumed my hands.

That’s why I’ll tell you these sorrows I’d like to put aside,

I’ll oblige you to live among their burns again,

not to mark time as in a terminal, before departing,

or to beat the earth with our brows,

or to fill our hearts with salt water,

but to set forth knowing, to touch rectitude

with decisions infinitely charged with meaning,

that severity may be a condition of happiness, that

we may thus become invincible.

—Pablo Neruda, Canto General