The Long Day Called Thursday

Newly awakened, I recognized
the day — it was yesterday,
it was yesterday with another name,
it was friend I knew to be lost
who came back to surprise me.

Thursday, I said to it, wait for me,
I am going to dress. We’ll go out together
until you disappear into night.
You shall die, I shall go on
awake and accustomed
to the satisfactions of dark.

Things came about quite differently
as I shall tell in intimate detail.

I don’t really care for Neruda — much of his poetry strikes me as forced — but this one’s pretty nice, and after a day spent hunched at my computer, looking up only long enough, once in awhile, to chafe at my responsibilities, at the dullness of being responsible when it’s naughtiness I need — I can relate to the Thursday of the poem that turns finally into a tomb.

The translation is by Alistair Reid, from a 1972 bilingual edition, in paperback, Pablo Neruda Selected Poems.

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