Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon,
thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light,
what obscure brilliance opens between your columns?
What ancient night does a man touch with his senses?


Loving is a journey with water and with stars,
with smothered air and abrupt storms of flour:
loving is a clash of lightning-bolts
and two bodies defeated by a single drop of honey.


The poetry of Pablo Neruda is beloved worldwide for its passion, humor, and exceptional accessibility. The nearly fifty poems selected for this collection and translated by Stephen Mitchell—widely praised for his original and definitive translations of spiritual writings and poetry—focus on Neruda's mature period, when the poet was in his fifties. A bilingual volume, with Neruda's original Spanish text facing Mitchell's English translation, it will bring Neruda's sensuous work to vibrant life for a whole new generation of readers.