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Yes: I knew that your hands were a blossoming clove and the silvery lily; your notable way with a furrow and the flowering marl; but when I saw you delve deeper, dug under to uncouple the cobble and limber the roots, I knew in a moment, little husbandman, your heartbeats were earthen no less than your hands that there, you were shaping a thing that was always your own, touching the drench of those doorways through which swirl the seeds. So plant after plant each fresh from the planting your face stained with the kiss of the ooze, your flowering went out and returned you went out and the tube of the Alstroemeria there under your hands raised its lonely and delicate presence, the jasmine devised a cloud for your temples starry with the scent and the dew. The whole of you prospered, piercing down into the earth, greening the light like a thunderclap in a massing of leafage and power. You confided your seedlings, my darling, like red husbandman; your hand fondled the earth and straightaway the growing was luminous. Even so, your watery fingers, the dust of your heart, bring us word of fecundity, love, and summon the strength of my songs. Touching my heart while I sleep trees bloom on my dream. I waken and widen my eyes, and you plant in my flesh the darkening stars that rise in my song. So it is, little husbandman: our loves are terrestrial: your mouth is a planting of lights, a corolla, and my heart works below in the roots. Pablo Neruda Odas elementales. Translation by Ben Belitt.