Loving is a journey with water and with stars, with smothered air and abrupt storms of flour: loving is a clash of lightning-bolts and two bodies defeated by a single drop of honey.

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.