"The Morning is Full"

By Pablo Neruda
The morning is full of storm
in the heart of summer.
The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs of
goodbye,
the wind, travelling, waving them in its
hands.
The numberless heart of the wind
beating above our loving silence.
Orchestral and divine, resounding among the
trees
like a language full of wars and songs.
Wind that bears off the dead leaves with a
quick raid
and deflects the pulsing arrows of the birds.
Wind that topples her ni a wave without
spray
and substance without weight, and leaning
fires.

Es la maana llena de tempestad

en el corazn del verano.
Como pauelos blancos de adis viajan las
nubes,
el viento las sacude con sus viajeras manos.
Innumerable corazn del viento
latiendo sobre nuestro silencio enamorado.
Zumbando entre los rboles, orquestal y
divino,
como una lengua llena de guerras y de
cantos.
Viento que lleva en rpido robo la hojarasca
y desva las flechas latientes de los pjaros.
Viento que la derriba en ola sin espuma
y sustancia sin peso, y fuegos inclinados.
Se rompe y se sumerge su volumen de besos
combatido en la puerta del viento del
verano.

Her mass of kisses breaks and sinks,

assailed in the door of the summer's wind.

As Neruda was writing about love making in conservative Chile, he had to write with care and always in innuendos.
Therefore he often had to disguise his description. He had to conceal instead of reveal the true subject matter. Love has
been romanticized, moralized and spiritualized by religion and literature. He wishes to return love to what it was in the
beginning of time, and at its most primal. But he can only do so in secret, as a fugitive, a traitor, a spy, always trying to
hide from the vigilance of the priests and moral leaders of his country. In this poem, again, he had to resort to this tactic
again. On the surface, he is writing about the natural scenery: a storm in a summer morning. the song breaking out from
the lovers hearts, amongst the trees, winds, fallen leaves, waves and foams and fires. Yet his poetry travels along the sea of
language like a boat with one part visible above the water and another part submerged and which only
emerges occasionally and gingerly as it rises slightly above the plimsoll line to the surface. To him, love making always
involves vigorous and rhythmic motions of rise and fall, just like a wave.

This poem is an excellent example of how Neruda performs this feat of tight rope walking. He has to rely heavily on
ambiguity. There are many ambiguities in this poem. First, there is no apparent subject. Who is speaking, the poet as an
omniscient narrator? The poet assuming the mask or persona of one of the pair of lovers? If so, is it the male or the female
of the pair? For example, in the last stanza, he uses the verb forms "se rompe y se sumerge", the third person, singular,
present, indicative tense but he does not indicate very clearly whether its the man or the woman or the wind which is
subject. I interpreted it as the wind because he has been talking about the wind in the previous stanzas. No subject nor the

gender of the subject of the verb is suggested. And in the first stanza, what is that storm in the summer morning, is it
physical storm of nature or the storm of love-making? What is the wind in the second stanza? Is it the hot breath of love
making? Or just hot wind of the Natures summer? And when he uses the words "the heart of summer", it may be
interpreted equally as in the middle of summer or a heart hot like summer. Which is it? And if the heart is hot, why hot?
Hot from what?

Again, in the fourth stanza, he uses the word "lengua" which in Spanish may mean either the physical tongue or tongue as
in "mother tongue" or language. The meaning of that stanza would be very different indeed depending on whether one
gives it a physical or a figurative interpretation. And in the same stanza, what are the "arboles" or trees"? Are they
references to the male manhood? Or are they references to the bush around the female sex? What is that divine orchestral
music which is being played like a tongue with battles and songs among the trees? In the second stanza, he compares the
clouds to white handkerchiefs saying goodbye. We all know what the colour of the juice of love looks like. Is he making an
oblique reference to that by the suggestion of saying goodbye or the end of an encounter? And the "travelling hands".
Whose hands, the mans or the woman"s?

And again, there is that wind. Is it natural wind or the wind of hot breath? And as for the "innumberable corazon del
viento" in the third stanza, why is the singular form of corazon (heart) used? Why is it "above" the "silence of the enclosed
love". Does "silence enamado" mean the pair of lover entwined to each other in the silence of love making leaving only the
sound of their breath as they gasp for air during the joint adventure? Is it human breath? Is he suggesting that love cannot
be counted like the seeds of love? The meaning of wind" becomes clearer when we read on. The wind brings "quick thefts
of fallen leaves". If wind is hot breath, then the fallen leaves must mean the lips at the womans sex! Yet Neruda can
perfectly justify his "natural" explanation! And the arrows of the birds may be interpreted as references to the arrows of
love and more physically the birds , which may rise and fall in the air may be interpreted as references to the male lovers
manhood! Again in the waves without "foam", it must be obvious what those "foam" should mean in that context And
leaning fires? Why leaning? Looks like another veiled reference to the male lovers manhood! And the meaning of the door
should be similarly obvious!

I must hasten to add that all the above are merely possible interpretations, my personal interpretation. This is the beauty
of poetry. A poem is always capable of as many interpretations there are readers who may supply different readings,
relying on the words of the poems as the text from which to launch their own imaginative journeys. Therefore there is a
sense in which once a poem is published, it belongs no longer solely to the poet. It is no longer within the exclusive control
of the poet. The poet can no more control how his reader shall read his poem as he can control how his lover will or may
respond to his amorous advances. The poem becomes the joint effort of the poet and his readers. It no longer exists in the
text. It exists in the interaction of the mind and heart of the poet and his reader mediated through the words of the poem,
in the same manner that the music is not in the musical score nor merely the performance of that music by a particular
musician or a quartet, a quintet or an orchestra but in also in the listening of that music by the audience. In the same
manner that music depends on a composer, a score, a performer and a listener, a poem is only fully a poem when there is a
poet, poem and a reader of that poem. The poem no longer resides in the text but exists in that realm where the reader
actively reads and interprets it in his own brain, using his own store of knowledge of the language, his own thoughts, his

own feelings, his own experiences and above all in that attitude of openness which delights in exposing himself to the
fragile beauty of the poem, which is always a product of a labor of love!

Es la maana llena de tempestad

en el corazn del verano.

The morning is full of storm

at the heart of summer.

Como panuelos blancos de adis viajan las nubes

The clouds travel like white handkechiefs of goodbye

el viento las sacude con sus viajeras manos.

the wind shakes them with its travelling hands.

Innumerable corazn del viento

Uncountable heart of the wind

latiendo sobre nuestro silencio enamorado.

Zumbando entre los rboles, orquestral y divino

lashing above our silence enmeshed by love.

Buzzing amongst trees, orchestral and divine,

como una lengua llena de guerras y de cantos.

like a tongue filled with battles and songs.

Viento que lleva en rpido robo la hojarasca

Wind which brings the fallen leaf in quick theft

y desva las flechas latiendes de los pajaros.

and diverts the birds lashing arrows.

Viento que la derriba en ola sin espuma

y sustancia sin peso, y fuegos inclinados.
Se rompe y se sumerge su volumen de besos
combatido en la puerta del viento del verano.

Wind which breaks her in a wave without foam

and substance without weight and leaning fires.
It breaks and submerges her volume of kisses
embattled at the door of the summer wind.