not only the fire

there are other memories
not only flowers from the fire
but little sprouts
that suddenly appear
when i go on trains
or in the streets.

i see you
washing my hankerchiefs,
hanging at the window
my worn-out socks,
your figure on which everything,
all pleasure like a flare-up,
fell without destroying you,
again,

little wife
of every day
again a human being,
humbly human,
proudly poor
as you have to be in order to be
not the swift rose
that love's ash dissolves
but all of life,
all of life with soap and needles,
with the smell that i love
of the kitchen that perhaps we shall not have
and in which your hand among the fried potatoes
and your mouth singing in the winter
until the roast arrives
would be for me the permanence
of happiness on earth.

Ah, my life,
it is not only the fire that burns between us
but all of life,
the simple story,
the simple love,
of a woman and a man
like everyone.

-pablo neruda.