A Dog Has Died
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
o a rusted old mae.
Some day Ill join him right there,
but now hes goh his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven Ill never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, Ill not speak of sadness here oh,
of having lost a panion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a pore
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like s obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
payihe attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me uand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
hed keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, roubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the seas movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the os spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we dont now and never did lie to each other.
So now hes gone and I buried him,
and thats all there is to it.
Translated, from the Spanish, by Alfred Yankauer
Pablo Neruda