“Translation of Poem - Oda al olor de la leña” by Pablo Neruda

Late, when the stars
open in the cold,
I opened the door.
                              The sea
was galloping
in the night.

Like a hand
from the dark house
arose the intense
perfume
of firewood.
A visible scent
as if the tree
were alive.
As if it still pulsed.
Visible
like a robe.
Visible
like a broken branch.

Overwhelmed 
by balsamic
darkness,
I went
inside
the house.
Outside
the points
of heaven were glimmering
like magnetic stones,
and the smell of firewood
touched 
my heart
like fingers,
like jasmine,
like memories.

It was not the sharp smell
of pines,
it was not
the cracked skin
of eucalyptus,
nor was it
the green perfume
of vineyards,
but something more secret,
because that fragrance
exists once
only,
once only—
And there, of all that lived in the world,
in my own
house, by night, near the winter sea,
there it was waiting for me—
the smell
of the deepest rose,
the heart cut from the earth—
and something
entered me like a wave
unloosed
from time
and I was lost in my self
when I opened the door
to the night.