Como Una Copa Gengra

Pablo Neruda
Today is Pablo Neruda's birthday. And so, in his memory:

El ser como el maiz se desgranaba en el inacabable
granero de los hechos perdidos, de los acontecimientos
miserables, del una al siete, al ocho,
y no una muerto, sino muchas muertos, llegaba a cada uno:
cada dia una muerto pequena, polvo, gusano, lampara
que se apaga en el lodo del suburbia, una pequena muerto
de alas guesas
entraba en cada hombre como una corta lanza
y era el hombre asediado del pan o del cuchillo,
el ganadero: el hijo de los puertos, o el capitan oscuro del arado,
o el roedor de las calles espesas:

todos desfallecieron esperando su muerte, su corta
muerta diaria:
y su quebranto aciago de cada dia era
como una copa gengra que bebian temblando.

Being like maize grains fell
in the inexhaustible store of lost deeds, shoddy
occurrences, from nine to five, to six,
and not one death but many came to each,
each day a little death: dust, maggot, lamp,
drenched in the mire of subsurbs, a little death with fat wings
entered into each man like a short blade
and siege was laid to him by bread or knife:
the drover, the son of harbors, the dark captain of plows,
the rodent wanderer through dense streets:

all of them weakened waiting for their death, their brief
and daily death--
and their ominous dwindling each day
was like a black cup they trembled while they drained.

From The Heights of Macchu Picchu, III (1966). Translation
by Nathaniel Tarn.

Please don't ask me to explain how "del uno al siete, al ocho" gets to "from nine to five, to six."