Enigmas

You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his golden feet? / I reply, the ocean knows this. / You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell? What is it waiting for? / I tell you it is waiting for time, like you. / You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms? / Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know. / You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal, / and I reply by describing / how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies. / You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers, / which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides? / Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on / the crystal architecture / of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now? / You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean spines? / The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks? / The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out / in the deep places like a thread in the water? / I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its jewel boxes / is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure, / and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the petal/ hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light / and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall / from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl. / I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead / of human eyes, dead in those darknesses, / of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes / on the timid globe of an orange. / I walked around as you do, investigating the endless star, / and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, / the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind. / PABLO NERUDA