Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market
Among the market greens,
a bullet
from the o
depths,
a swimming
projectile,
I saw you,
dead.
All around you
were lettuces,
sea foam
of the earth,
carrots,
grapes,
but
of the o
truth,
of the unknown,
of the
unfathomable
shadow, the
depths
of the sea,
the abyss,
only you had survived,
a pitch-black, varnished
witness
to deepest night.
Only you, well-aimed
dark bullet
from the abyss,
mangled
at oip,
but stantly
reborn,
at anchor in the current,
winged fins
windmilling
in the swift
flight
of
the
marine
shadow,
a m arrow,
dart of the sea,
olive, oily fish.
I saw you dead,
a deceased king
of my own o,
green
assault, silver
submarine fir,
seed
of seaquakes,
now
only dead remains,
yet
in all the market
yours
was the only
purposeful form
amid
the bewildering rout
of nature;
amid the fragile greens
you were
a solitary ship,
armed
among the vegetables
fin and prow blad oiled,
as if you were still
the vessel of the wind,
the one and only
pure
o
mae:
unflawed, navigating
the waters of death.
Pablo Neruda