Pablo Neruda’s Isla Negra

by Monique Filsnol

"A Single Drop Lucid and Heavy."

A French admirer of Pablo Neruda visits his Isla Negra in Chile

Finally, I made it to Isla Negra.
"The great rain from the South falls on Isla Negra like a single drop lucid and heavy."

Since I read these two lines I wanted to go to Isla Negra. How often have I murmured the verses and dreamed: "like a single drop lucid and heavy."

I was fifteen when I first read Pablo Neruda's poetry. My parents had sent me to Valencia, in Spain, to improve my mediocre grades in Spanish. I remember Maria Carmen, our teacher, reading the verses...