Homage To Pablo Neruda Poem by Daniel Brick

O Neruda, the twentieth century belongs to you.
Your whole life is contained within it. Your poems
aged like a precious wine over its decades,
and they grew stronger, even as you did,
in body and soul. If we placed your poems one by one
on the ground like pavement stones, they would
lead us to Isle Negra, where you lived with Mathilde
a life of love and service, of passion and poetry.
Your poems can abolish slavery where it still lurks,
they can relate history minus the lies of the victors,
they can create gardens whose flowers and flowering
trees send forth a fragrance that summons lovers,
they make birds swoop over our heads, they make
landscapes that promote harmony and hope.
Your name is a banner that reads in all languages:
"Poetry is the Truth of Life." Our voices are cleansed
reciting your poems, our hearts swell with pride
carrying them within. O Neruda, the loneliness of
this twenty-first century without your presence
is unbearable. Speak through our voices, be present
as the Spirit of the Age, the Angel of its Salvation.