An odor stayed on in the canefields
The poem's opening line is easy to pass over, especially because of the vivid descriptions of death and decay that follow. But it sets up the remainder of the poem in a concise and telling way. The phrase "stayed on" in a first line has a sinister resonance to it, since it implies past events of which the readers have no knowledge. By describing the aftermath of a terrible scene, Neruda implies that the scene itself is too horrific to relate. This obliqueness makes the matter seem all the more serious and distressing. Meanwhile, the mention of canefields hints at a world of colonial extraction and violence outside the bounds of this particular scene, given the wealth of historical connections between the global sugar trade, the slave trade, and colonialism.
The gloved laugh redoubled, a moment
Spanning the passageways...
This poem is incredibly rich in figurative language, and these lines are no exception. By describing the laughter of politically powerful people as "gloved laughter," Neruda not only references their luxurious clothing and wealth, but also implies that their laughter and conversation are in a sense shielded—protected from the real world and even slightly unreal. The word "redoubled," perhaps a deliberate translation choice, reinforces the depiction of insularity and shelteredness: while redouble literally means to increase or intensify, the prefix "re" subconsciously suggests repetition, evoking the image of echoes and enclosure.
Lament was perpetual and fell, like a plant and its pollen,
Forcing a lightless increase in the blinded, big leaves.
These are among the more mysterious lines in the poem. One way to interpret them is by viewing their mentions of darkness and blindness as metaphorical references to fascism. Under this interpretation, the grief that people feel as a result of the dictator's violence or violent policies brings about darkness in a self-perpetuating cycle. The words "lightless" and "blinded" create a tense, sad mood, but they also evoke the suppression of ideas, speech, and knowledge under a tyrannical government. In other words, these lines suggest, the threat of violence and the grief it creates are able to effectively force people into silence and dampen dissent or hope.
