We open the halves of a miracle, and a clotting of acids brims into the starry divisions: creation's original juices, irreducible, changeless, alive: so the freshness lives on

Pinochet had denied permission to transform Neruda's funeral into a public event. Three days after being hospitalised Neruda died of heart failure; however there are doubts as to whether or not the junta had a hand in his death. Neruda became known as a poet while still a teenager.