Pablo Neruda - Ode To Things lyrics

I have a crazy, crazy love of things. I like pliers, and scissors. I love cups, rings, and bowls – not to speak, or course, of hats. I love all things, not just the grandest, also the infinite- ly small – thimbles, spurs, plates, and flower vases. Oh yes, the planet is sublime! It's full of pipes weaving hand-held through tobacco smoke, and keys and salt shakers – everything, I mean, that is made by the hand of man, every little thing: shapely shoes, and fabric, and each new bloodless birth of gold, eyegla**es carpenter's nails, brushes, clocks, compa**es, coins, and the so-soft softness of chairs. Mankind has built oh so many perfect things! Built them of wool and of wood, of gla** and of rope: remarkable tables, ships, and stairways. I love all things, not because they are pa**ionate or sweet-smelling but because, I don't know, because this ocean is yours, and mine; these bu*tons and wheels and little forgotten treasures, fans upon whose feathers love has scattered its blossoms, gla**es, knives and scissors – all bear the trace of someone's fingers on their handle or surface, the trace of a distant hand lost in the depths of forgetfulness. I pause in houses, streets and elevators touching things, identifying objects that I secretly covet; this one because it rings, that one because it's as soft as the softness of a woman's hip, that one there for its deep-sea color, and that one for its velvet feel. O irrevocable river of things: no one can say that I loved only fish, or the plants of the jungle and the field, that I loved only those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive. It's not true: many things conspired to tell me the whole story. Not only did they touch me, or my hand touched them: they were so close that they were a part of my being, they were so alive with me that they lived half my life and will die half my d**h.