Horseman in Rain

Unknown

Horseman in Rain

Primordial waters: clover and oat striving, water-walls,
a meshing of cords in the net of the night,
in the barbarous weave of the damp, dropping water,
a rending of water-drops, lamenting successions,
diagonal rage, cutting heaven.
Steeped in aromas, smashing the water, interposing
the roan of their gloss, like a foliage, between boulder water.
The horses gallop in water,
their vapor attending, in a lunatic milk,
a stampede of doves that hardens, like water.
Not day, but a cistern
of obdurate weather, green agitations,
where hooves join a landscape of haste
with the lapse of the rain and the bestial aroma of horses.
Blankets and pommels, clustering cloak-furs,
seedfalls of darkness
ablaze on the haunches of brimstone
that beat the considering jungle.


                         Beyond and beyond and beyond
And beyond and beyond and beyond and beyoooooond:
the horsemen demolish the rain, the horsemen
pass under the bittering hazelnut, the rain
weaves unperishing wheat in a shimmer of lustres.
Here is water's effulgence, confusion of lightning,
to spill on the leaf, here, from the noise of the gallop,
the water goes wounded to earth, without flight. 
The bridle reins dampen; branch-covered archways,
footfalls of footfalls, an herbage of darkness
in splintering starshapes, moonlike, icelike, a cyclone of horses
riddled with points like an icicle prism -
and born out of furor, the innocent fingers brim over,
the apple encompassing terror
and the terrible banners of empire, are smitten.
Pablo Neruda (translated by Ben Belitt)

What just happened?!!

What was that?

A kind of list? Of how water can fall or be smashed or be spilled, how it weaves and shimmers and spits - or this, "here is water's effulgence" (effulgence, what a great word - "a brilliant radiance, a shining forth")? I haven't come across many lists with the action and movement in this one. The horses galloping, stampeding, hooves flying - the smell and the sound of them - wonderful! This is the magic of Neruda.