Pablo Neruda’s “Para mi corazón basta tu pecho”, sung by Paco Ibáñez

This is a very beautiful musicalization of Pablo Neruda’s poem number 12, of his Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, made by the great songwriter Paco Ibáñez, acompanied by the Argentine Cuarteto Cedrón, recorded on an album of 1977 Paco Ibáñez canta a Pablo Neruda (“… sings Pablo Neruda”), a record that seems to be lost in his discography.

And now the usual note when I translate the great poets: this “translation” must be taken just like an aproximation.

12

(Para mi corazón basta tu pecho)

Para mi corazón basta tu pecho,
para tu libertad bastan mis alas.
Desde mi boca llegará hasta el cielo
lo que estaba dormido sobre tu alma.

Es en ti la ilusión de cada día.
Llegas como el rocío a las corolas.
Socavas el horizonte con tu ausencia.
Eternamente en fuga como la ola.

He dicho que cantabas en el viento
como los pinos y como los mástiles.
Como ellos eres alta y taciturna.
Y entristeces de pronto, como un viaje.

Acogedora como un viejo camino.
Te pueblan ecos y voces nostálgicas.
Yo desperté y a veces emigran y huyen
pájaros que dormían en tu alma.

(For my heart your breast is enough)

For my heart your breast is enough,/ for your freedom my wings are enough./ From my mouth shall reach for the sky/ that what was sleeping upon your soul.// It’s in you the hope of every day./ You come just like the dew to the corollas./ You undermine the horizon with your absence./ Eternally on the run just like the wave.// I’ve said that you were singing in the wind/ like the pine trees and like the masts./ Just like them, you are tall and taciturn./ And suddenly you grow sad, like a travel.// Homely like an old road./ Echoes and nostalgic voices prove you./ I woke up and sometimes the birds that were sleeping in your soul/ migrate and run away.

Pablo Neruda

Barcelona, March 2012