THE BEES (I)

What was I to do, I, born

when the gods were dead,

and my insufferable youth

spent searching between cracks?

It was my role, and because of it

I felt so desolate.

One bee plus one bee

does not make two bees of light

or two bees of darkness:

it makes a solar system,

a house of topaz,

a dangerous caress.

The first concern of amber

is two golden bees

and tied to those same bees

each day’s sun travels:

I rage at revealing so many

of my ridiculous secrets.

They go on chasing me questioning

my relationship with cats,

how I found the rainbow’s arc,

why the worthy chestnuts

show themselves as hedgehogs,

and above all for me to say

what the toads think of me,

the creatures hidden

beneath the wood’s fragrance

or in the bubbles of concrete.

The truth is that among the knowers

I owned to a unique ignorance

and among those who might know less

I was always a little less knowing

and so little was my knowledge

that I learned wisdom.

--- Pablo Neruda