To Keep Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
And we’ll all keep still.

This one time upon the earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
we won’t move our arms so much.

It would be a fragrant minute,
without hurry, without locomotives,
we would all be together
in one instantaneous restlessness.

The fishermen of the cold sea
wouldn’t harm the whales
and the worker of salt
would look at his broken hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victory without survivors,
will put on clean clothes
and walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing anything.

Don’t confuse what I want
with definitive inaction:
life is the only thing that matters,
I don’t want anything to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
moving our lives so much,
perhaps we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence can
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves,
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth will teach us
when everything seems dead
and then everything was alive.

Now I will count till 12
and you be quiet and I will go.

~Pablo Neruda