Those two solitary men
       

Those two solitary men,
those first men
up there,
what of ours did they
bring with them?
What from us, the men
of Earth?

It occurs to me
that the light was fresh then,
that an unwinking star
journeyed along
cutting short and linking
distances,
their faces unused
to the awesome desolation,
in pure space
among astral bodies polished and glistening
like grass at dawn,
something new came from the earth,
wings or bone-coldness,
enormous drops of water
or surprise
thoughts, a strange bird
throbbing
to the distant human heart.

And not only that,
but cities, smoke,
the roar of crowds,
bells and violins,
the feet of children leaving school,
all of that is alive
m space now,
from now on,
because the astronauts
didn't go by themselves,
they brought our earth,
the odors of moss and forest,
love, the crisscrossed limbs of men and women,
terrestrial rains over the prairies,
something floated up like
a wedding dress
behind the two spaceships:
it was our spring on earth
blooming for the first time
that conquered an inanimate heaven,
depositing in those altitudes
the seed
of our kind.

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Copyright © 2018 Forrest Gander All rights reserved
from Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission