Neruda and Chekhov easily lead me away from my Faulkner reading these last few days. Perhaps it's the mood of the crystalized trees that capture the sun 'fore the sun steals the diamonds away. But this has to be one of my favorites:
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
This sings with color, with love, with the wonder of a simple gift in life that transcends its own simplicity.
Such subtle alliteration that adds texture: lascivious velvet
And the similes: smooth as a golden sword that leads us with the next "s" sound into the feeling of velvet, even as we envision the shiny smoothness of a sword, Neruda turns it into a liquid that slides down our throat.
Wine with purple feet brings dual images to mind of both grape-stomping and the 'legs' that form on a glass of good wine.
I can share the whole poem with you here.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology