oda a la bella desnuda

I took these photographs of the statues outside the Uffizi galleria of Florence. (click images to enlarge)


Ode to a Beautiful Nude
by: Pablo Neruda

Beautiful nude:
equally beautiful
your feet
arched by primeval tap
of wind or sound;
your ears
small shells
of the splendid American sea;
your breasts
of level plenitude full-
filled by living light;
your flying
eyelids of wheat
revealing
or enclosing
the two deep countries of your eyes.

The line of your shoulders
have divided
into pale regions
loses itself and blends
into the compact halves
of an apple,
continues separating
your beauty down
into two columns
of burnished gold, fine alabaster,
to sink into the two grapes of your feet,
where your twin symmetrical tree
burns again and rises:
flowering fire, open chandelier,
a swelling fruit
over the pact of sea and earth.