Magellanic Penguin

Magellanic Penguin

Neither clown nor child nor black

nor white but verticle

and a questioning innocence

dressed in night and snow:

The mother smiles at the sailor,

the fisherman at the astronaunt,

but the child child does not smile

when he looks at the bird child,

and from the disorderly ocean

the immaculate passenger

emerges in snowy mourning.

I was without doubt the child bird

there in the cold archipelagoes

when it looked at me with its eyes,

with its ancient ocean eyes:

it had neither arms nor wings

but hard little oars

on its sides:

it was as old as the salt;

the age of moving water,

and it looked at me from its age:

since then I know I do not exist;

I am a worm in the sand.

the reasons for my respect

remained in the sand:

the religious bird

did not need to fly,

did not need to sing,

and through its form was visible

its wild soul bled salt:

as if a vein from the bitter sea

had been broken.

Penguin, static traveler,

deliberate priest of the cold,

I salute your vertical salt

and envy your plumed pride.

Pablo Neruda