the disdain and desire

Drenched in my natural waters, I came of age 

like the mollusk in watery phosphor; 

salts broke and rebounded in me,

contrived the device of my intimate skeleton.

How give it a name—something almost

unmoved in itself, in the blue, bitter breathing

that gave back to me, wave after wave, 

my unique intimations; that pulsed

and then bodied me forth in the brine and the resin:

the disdain and desire of a wave,

green rhythm at the heart of a mystery

that raised a diaphanous mansion;

a secret reserved to itself that I later

sensed as my own, like a pulse beat made mine,

till my song came of age, with the water.

 

[Pablo Neruda {1904-1973} 'The Tides' from III: The Cruel Fire, of 'Black Island Memorial', in Five Decades: Poems 1925-1970]