Bottom Line

Bottom Line

by Pablo Neruda

Translated by Paul Thomas Zenki

I’m content with all the debts
I’ve put on myself, in this life
rounded up from odds and ends:
tender ghosts who tousled my hair,
ubiquitous hands of earth,
a senseless wind that stirred me,
the thorn of those slicing kisses, the hard reality
of my brothers,
my imperious duty to oversee,
my inclination just to be myself
in the weakness of my pleasures,
which is why — water on stone — my life went
singing from riches to rags.

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