Fantom of the Freighter

Distance in flight above pipes of foam,

Salt in ritual waves and reguiar ranks,

And an odor and murmur of old ship,

Of rotted wood and damaged ironwork,

And tired machines that howl and weep

Pushing the prow and kicking the sides,

Mumbling lamentations, swallowing and swallowing distances,

Making a noise of sour waters over the sour waters,

Moving the old ship over the old waters.

Inner storeholds, crepuscular tunnels

Visited by intermittent daylight of the harbors:

Bags, bags heaped up by a somber god

Like grey animals, rounded and eyeless,

With gentle grey ears,

And worthy stomachs full of wheat or copra,

Sensitive bellies of pregnant women,

Meanly dressed in grey, patiently

Waiting in the shadow of a dolorous cinema.

Suddenly the waters outside |

Are heard passing, running like an opaque horse,

With a noise of horses' hooves in the water,

Rapid, submerging themselves once more in the waters.

Then there is nothing but time in the cabins,

Time in the miserable solitary diningroom,

Motionless and visible like a great sorrow.

Odor of leather and cloth thickly worn out,

And onions and oil and yet more,

Odor of something floating in the corners of the ship,

Odor of something nameless,

That comes down the stairs like a wave of air,

And traverses the corridors with its nonexistent body,

And looks on with eyes preserved by death,

It looks on with its colorless eyes that are sightless,

Slow, and it passes trembling without substance or shadow,

Sounds wrinkle it, things go through it,

Its transparency makes the dirty chairs glisten

Who is this fantom without a fantom's body,

With its steps light as nocturnal dust

And its voice that only objects preserve?

The furnishings travel full of its silent being

Like little ships within the old ship,

Freighted with its vague and disintegrated being:

The wardrobes, the green tablecovers,

The color of the curtains and the floor,

Everything has suffered the slow emptiness of its hands

And things have been worn out by its breath.

It slips and slides, it descends, transparent,

Air within cold air that flows over the ship,

It leans on the railings with its hidden hands

And looks at the bitter sea which flees behind the ship.

Only the waters repel its influence,

Its odor and color of forgotten fantom .

And cool and deep they unfold their dance

Like lives of fire, like blood or perfume,

They surge, new and strong, united and reunited.

The waters, without wearing out, without custom or time,

Green with quantity, skillful and cold,

Touch the black stomach of the ship and wash its material,

Its injured sides, its iron wrinkles,

The living waters gnaw the hull of the ship,

Traveling with broad banners of foam

And their teeth of salt flying in drops.

The fantom looks at the sea with its eyeless face:

The circle of day, the coughing of the ship, a bird

In the rounded and lonely equation of space;

- And it descends anew into the life of the ship,

Falling upon the wood and dead time,

Gliding into black kitchens and cabins,

Slow with air and atmosphere and desolate space.

Pablo Neruda (Chile)

translated by H. R. Hays