neruda 56, stripped and redressed

behind me the shadow waves sailed,
storming out from your angry hands,
and i felt my sea turning underneath,
frozen crystalline. so sank your ship

and all its captains, hungry roars and cries
drowned one by one by that silent magnanimity.
i broke the ice to retrieve you, breathing life into you
with gentle syllables of my love, and resuscitated you.

i carried you to shore and laid you under
the sun, and saw the sky flowering blue
in your kindling newborn eyes

and we lay there on land, quietly alive,
my fingers harvesting by day and night
the windblown wheatfield atop your head.