Ode To Wine

Portrait of Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda 1904–1973
2Elementary Odes

Day-colored wine, night-colored wine, wine with purple feet or wine with topaz blood, wine, starry child of earth, wine, smooth as a golden sword, soft as lascivious velvet, wine, spiral-seashelled and full of wonder, amorous, marine; never has one goblet contained you, one song, one man, you are choral, gregarious, at the least, you must be shared. At times you feed on mortal memories; your wave carries us from tomb to tomb, stonecutter of icy sepulchers, and we weep transitory tears; your glorious spring dress is different, blood rises through the shoots, wind incites the day, nothing is left of your immutable soul. Wine stirs the spring, happiness bursts through the earth like a plant, walls crumble, and rocky cliffs, chasms close, as song is born. A jug of wine, and thou beside me in the wilderness, sang the ancient poet. Let the wine pitcher add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly the line of your hip becomes the brimming curve of the wine goblet, your breast is the grape cluster, your nipples are the grapes, the gleam of spirits lights your hair, and your navel is a chaste seal stamped on the vessel of your belly, your love an inexhaustible cascade of wine, light that illuminates my senses, the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love, the fiery kiss, the heat of fire, more than the wine of life; you are the community of man, translucency, chorus of discipline, abundance of flowers. I like on the table, when we're speaking, the light of a bottle of intelligent wine. Drink it, and remember in every drop of gold, in every topaz glass, in every purple ladle, that autumn labored to fill the vessel with wine; and in the ritual of his office, let the simple man remember to think of the soil and of his duty, to propagate the canticle of the wine.

Keep reading

Discover more of Pablo Neruda’s poetry.

Explore all poems

Readers

Reader discussion 1 comment

Add your reading ↓
Readers
1
Longest reading
Emily4 words
  1. Emily United States

    ILL DRINK TO THAT!

Your turn

Shown with your comment.

Never published. Only so we can reach you.

Comments are read before they appear. See our terms.