The other was a hefty 843-page tome with every one of Neruda’s odes, in Spanish on one side of the page, English on the other (“Ode to an Artichoke.” “Ode to the Dictionary.” “Ode to Walt Whitman.” “Ode to My Suit”: “Every morning, suit, you are waiting on a chair to be filled by my vanity, my love, my hope, my body.”) It’s fitting, for this poet who so loved material objects, less for their value, I think, than for what they represented, that he wrote 225 of these odes.

I’m no poet, and no poetry critic, but I found myself thinking, as I flew north over South America with my backpack full of Neruda, that not all of these poems are so great or memorable. The poet may have been served better writing a little less. Just as it may be said that his wonderful houses could contain one tenth the number of amazing treasures, and they’d still be wonderful places to behold. More so, maybe.

But who am I to criticize a great poet for the excess, as I make my way back to a house filled with ample evidence of my own obsessive collecting? I know as well as the next person that it’s dust to dust in the end. All a person takes with him to the grave are his bones.

But in the middle, between birth and death, I’d call it a glorious thing, to raise one’s red Mexican glass at a fine round table set with gilt-edged china, while candles flicker and the music box plays, and the host sports a fez, and his beautiful redheaded wife whispers words of love in his ear. There’s a string of rare pearls around her neck, and a ship’s figurehead of a woman with her breasts spilling from her bodice, over the assembled guests, while outside, fireworks explode over a roaring sea.

IF YOU GO

Admission for each of Pablo Neruda’s three houses is 5,000 pesos, about $7.30 (student and senior discounts are available). They all offer audio guides in English, and each is closed on Monday.

La Chascona (Fernando Márquez de la Plata 0192, Barrio Bellavista, Providencia, Santiago, 56-2-2777-8741; fundacionneruda.org) takes its name, “Wild Hair,” from the nickname of Neruda’s then-secret lover, Matilde Urrutia. It sits on a side street on a high hill in Santiago, at the foot of Cerro San Cristóbal, overlooking the city. Ransacked after the coup that removed Salvador Allende from power, the house has now been fully restored.

La Sebastiana (Ferrari 692, Valparaíso, 56-32-225-6606; fundacionneruda.org) sits high on a hill, overlooking the bay and the city of Valparaíso. Neruda invited his friends here every September to watch the fireworks marking the celebration of Chile’s independence.

Isla Negra (Poeta Neruda s/n, Isla Negra, El Quisco, 56-35-2461284; fundacionneruda.org), on the rocky coastline just over an hour south of Valparaíso, is where Neruda and Matilde chose to be buried — though after his death, she could not bring herself to return. The drive to Isla Negra, from Valparaíso, allows for visits to a number of fine Chilean vineyards. Well worth the stop, for those who have time.