Pablo Neruda

Ode To Ironing

Poetry is white: it comes from water swathed in drops, it wrinkles and gathers, this planet's skin has to spread out, the sea's whiteness has to be ironed out, and the hands keep moving, the sacred surfaces get smoothed, and things are done this way: the hands make the world every day, fire conjoins with steel, linen, canvas, and cotton arrive from the scuffles in the laundries, and from light a dove is born: chastity returns out of the foam.