Neruda: Bird by Bird

Baltimore Oriole
© Quodlibet 2014 All rights reserved

I’ve wandered the world in search of life:

bird by bird I’ve come to know the earth:

discovered where fire flames aloft:

the expenditure of energy

and my disinterestedness were rewarded,

even though no one paid me for it,

because I received those wings in my soul

and immobility never held me down.

– Pablo Neruda (Chilean, 1904-1973) 

from Art of Birds