Pablo Neruda

Entrance of the Rivers

Entrance of the Rivers - meaning Summary

River Imagery as Embodiment

Neruda's poem addresses a female figure as a living river: she is both goddess and landscape. Through sustained water imagery the speaker presents her as source, motion and force—nourishing, awakening and reshaping the earth. The poem moves from intimate bodily metaphors to vast geological action, suggesting love as creative, erosive and world-forming. Its tone combines tenderness with an awe of elemental power.

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Beloved of the rivers,beset By azure water and transparent drops, Like a tree of veins your spectre Of dark goddess biting apples: And then awakening naked To be tattoed by the rivers, And in the wet heights your head Filled the world with new dew. Water rose to your waist, You are made of wellsprings And lakes shone on your forehead. From your sources of density you drew Water like vital tears And hauled the riverbeds to the sand Across the planetary night, Crossing rough, dilated stone, Breaking down on the way All the salt of geology, Cutting through forests of compact walls Dislodging the muscles of quartz.

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