LIII
Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

Here are the bread–the wine–the table–the house:
a man’s needs, and a woman’s, and a life’s.
Peace whirled through and settled in this place:
the common fire burned, to make this light.

Hail to your two hands, which fly and make
their white creations, the singing and the food:
salve! the wholesomeness of your busy feet’
viva! the ballerina who dance with the broom

Those rugged rivers of water and of threat,
torturous pavilions of the foam,
incendiary hives and reefs: today

they are this respite, your blood in mine,
the path, starry and blue as the night,
this never-ending simple tenderness.