Ode to my Socks

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks

knitted
with her own
shepherd's
hands,

two
socks soft
as
rabbits.
I
slipped
my feet
into them

as if
into
jewel
cases
woven
with
threads
of
dusk
and sheep's
wool.

Audacious
socks,
my feet
became
two
woolen
fish,
two long
sharks

of lapis
blue
shot
with a
golden thread,
two
mammoth blackbirds,
two
cannons,

thus
honored
were
my feet
by
these
celestial
socks.

They
were
so
beautiful that for
the first time
my feet
seemed
unacceptable
to me,

two
tired old
fire
fighters
not
worthy
of the
woven
fire
of those
luminous
socks.

Nonetheless,
I
resisted
the
strong temptation

to save
them
the way

schoolboys
bottle
fireflies,
the way
scholars
hoard

sacred
documents.

I
resisted
the wild
impulse
to place
them
in a cage
of gold
and
daily feed them
birdseed
and rosy
melon flesh.

Like
explorers who in the forest
surrender
a rare
green deer

to the
spit
and eat
it
with
remorse,
I stuck
out my feet
and
pulled on
the
handsome
socks,
and then
my shoes.

So this
is
the
moral of my ode:
twice
beautiful
is
beauty
and what
is good is doubly
good
when it
is a case of two
woolen
socks
in
wintertime.

                      Pablo Neruda