Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda assumed his pen name as a teenager, partly because it was in vogue, partly to hide his poetry from his father, a rigid man who wanted his son to have a "practical" occupation.

Neruda's pen name was derived from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda; Pablo is thought to be from Paul Verlaine. With his works translated into many languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century.

Neruda was accomplished in a variety of styles ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos.

In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversial award because of his political activism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language." Wikipedia

This is part of a whole bunch of poems Neruda wrote that are odes (songs of praise) to ordinary things, the most famous being Ode to my Socks.

After a brief sprint around Google, I’m unable to find who the translator was on this one.

A SMELL OF CORDWOOD
Pablo Neruda

Later, when stars
opened out to the cold,
I opened the door.
Night:
on an ocean
of galloping hooves.

Then from the dark
of the house, like a hand,
the savage
aroma
of wood on the woodpile.

An odor
that lives
like a tree
a visible odor,
As if cordwood pulsed like a tree

Vesture
made visible.

A visible
breaking of branches.

I turned back
to
the house
in the circle
of darkening
balsam.
Beyond
a sparkle
of motes in the sky,
like lodestones.
But the wood-smell
took hold of
my heart,
like a hand and its fingers,
like jasmine,
like a memory cherished.

Not harrowing
pine-odor
not that way,
not slashed
eucalyptus.
not like
the green
exhalation
of arbors--
but
something more recondite
a fragrance
that gives itself
once, and once
only,
among all things visible,
a world
or a house, a night
by the wintering water;
that awaited me there,
occult in the smell
of the rose,
an earth-heart plucked out,
dominion
that
struck like a wave,
a sundered
duration,
and was lost in my blood
when I opened the door
of the night.

Ah, personification and imagery. Two of the loveliest dance partners....

Beautifully trancendant ...

My absolute favorite poet, exquisite...

I think you can only get that smell from a cord of wood. I don't smell it with the pitiful pile I have. But I can smell it now and see it in my minds eye. Thank You Ruth, for posting this. A wonderous assault to my senses.

I've toyed with the idea of buying a Neruda collection. Problem is (as is always the problem with non-English writing poets), I don't know who the best translator is and thus which book is the wisest purchase for poetry-loving English speakers.

Do any of you Constant-Reader-inople sorts have a clue? Willing to be led... (something my wife would love to hear, so keep it quiet, 'K?).

Newengland,
Have yet to be misfortunate with a poor translation of him, generally excellent.
Unrivalled for his take on the melancholy of sensuality.
PoemHunter.com is always useful for a quick 'try before you buy'

I'm no help in recommending translators either, NE. But I did notice whilst trolling around to see if I could find the original Spanish for this poem, that there are several bilingual editions of Neruda poems. If you can read Spanish at all, one of those might be interesting.

I agree that there are probably no poor translations of Neruda's works. Every book I have of his is a personal favorite. Isla Negra A Notebook / A Bilingual Edition is a great collection of poetry and covers a variety of subject matters (ie, politics, love, family, etc.) as well as different periods in his life which is interesting as far as seeing the progression of his writing.

Just lovely. I particularly liked: "a fragrance
that gives itself/once, and once/only" as well as the final lines.

I hear Neruda's name, and I am inevitably swept back into one of my favorite movies, "Il Postino." Perhaps not the best take on Neruda (I wouldn't know), but a great tribute to the power of beauty and of beautiful words, as well as a sad reflection on the law of unintended consequences.

Almost every poem of Neruda's is my favorite. I do love this one.

I have the DVD "Il Postino," too, Mary Ellen, and it's one of my favorite movies.