Words that Sing

Sometimes I read things that just leave me breathless --- and speechless. I found this on another site but had to repeat it here. I can add nothing so today I turn my blog over to Pablo Neruda:

You can say anything you want, yes sir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend . . . I bow to them . . . I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them . . . I love words so much . . . The ones I wait for greedily. . .they glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew . . . I stalk certain words . . . They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem . . . I catch them in midflight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives . . . And I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them . . . I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, like pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves . . . Everything exists in the word.

~ Pablo Neruda

Thanks for reading and thank heavens for Neruda.