Ode to the Onion

A beauty from Pablo Neruda:

Ode To The Onion 

by Pablo Neruda 

Onion, 

luminous flask, 

your beauty formed 

petal by petal, 

crystal scales expanded you 

and in the secrecy of the dark earth 

your belly grew round with dew. 

Under the earth 

the miracle 

happened 

and when your clumsy 

green stem appeared, 

and your leaves were born 

like swords 

in the garden, 

the earth heaped up her power 

showing your naked transparency,

and as the remote sea 

in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite 

duplicating the magnolia, 

so did the earth 

make you, 

onion 

clear as a planet 

and destined 

to shine, 

constant constellation, 

round rose of water, 

upon the table 

of the poor. 

You make us cry without hurting us. 

I have praised everything that exists, 

but to me, onion, you are 

more beautiful than a bird

of dazzling feathers, 

heavenly globe, platinum goblet, 

unmoving dance 

of the snowy anemone 

and the fragrance of the earth lives 

in your crystalline nature. 

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I originally saw this left-aligned, but I really like the onion-like bulbous shapes that emerge when it is center-aligned. Yes?