Here is simplicity with heartbreaking truth

Still Another Day by Pablo Neruda
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This small collection of Neruda’s last words has great power, and the translation keeps that power while being close to a transliteration. Neruda weaves the imagery and themes of a lifetime together with local and national Chilean history to create poetry that is very personal yet universal. William O’Daly’s translations retain that poetry as much as any translation can. Here is simplicity with heartbreaking truth:

y yo fui descubriendo, nombrando todas las cosas:
fue mi destino amar y despedirme

and I was discovering, naming all these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.




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