Pablo Neruda Love Poems Quotes

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

I want To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Well, now If little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you Little by little If suddenly you forget me Do not look for me For I shall already have forgotten you If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots Remember That on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms And my roots will set off to seek another land

I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

It was at that age that poetry came in search of me.

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy.

I have slept with you all night long while the dark earth spins with the living and the dead, and on waking suddenly in the midst of the shadow my arm encircled your waist. Neither night nor sleep could separate us.

I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier. But you are the queen. When you go through the streets No one recognizes you. No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks At the carpet of red gold That you tread as you pass, The nonexistent carpet. And when you appear All the rivers sound In my body, bells Shake the sky, And a hymn fills the world. Only you and I, Only you and I, my love, Listen to it.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars, and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance." The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights like this, I held her in my arms. I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her. How could I not have loved her large, still eyes? I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her. To hear the immense night, more immense without her. And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass. What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her. The night is full of stars and she is not with me. That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away. My soul is lost without her. As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her. My heart searches for her and she is not with me. The same night that whitens the same trees. We, we who were, we are the same no longer. I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her. My voice searched the wind to touch her ear. Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once belonged to my kisses. Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her. Love is so short and oblivion so long. Because on nights like this I held her in my arms, my soul is lost without her. Although this may be the last pain she causes me, and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Every day you play with the light of the universe.

There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.

sometimes i get up at dawn, and even my soul is wet.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Amor" So many days, oh so many days seeing you so tangible and so close, how do I pay, with what do I pay? The bloodthirsty spring has awakened in the woods. The foxes start from their earths, the serpents drink the dew, and I go with you in the leaves between the pines and the silence, asking myself how and when I will have to pay for my luck. Of everything I have seen, it's you I want to go on seeing: of everything I've touched, it's your flesh I want to go on touching. I love your orange laughter. I am moved by the sight of you sleeping. What am I to do, love, loved one? I don't know how others love or how people loved in the past. I live, watching you, loving you. Being in love is my nature. You please me more each afternoon. Where is she? I keep on asking if your eyes disappear. How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt. I feel poor, foolish and sad, and you arrive and you are lightning glancing off the peach trees. That's why I love you and yet not why. There are so many reasons, and yet so few, for love has to be so, involving and general, particular and terrifying, joyful and grieving, flowering like the stars, and measureless as a kiss. That's why I love you and yet not why. There are so many reasons, and yet so few, for love has to be so, involving and general, particular and terrifying, joyful and grieving, flowering like the stars, and measureless as a kiss.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde, te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo: así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera, sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres, tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía, tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

I remembered you with my soul clenched

The birds of night peck at the first stars that flash like my soul when I love you.

Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain. I love you still among these cold things. Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels that cross the sea towards no arrival. I see myself forgotten like those old anchors. The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there. My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose. I love what I do not have. You are so far. My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights. But night comes and starts to sing to me.

Like them you are tall and taciturn, and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage.

In you is the illusion of each day. You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers. You undermine the horizon with your absence. Eternally in flight like the wave.

The morning is full of storm in the heart of summer. The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs of goodbye, the wind, travelling, waving them in its hands. The numberless heart of the wind beating above our loving silence. Orchestral and divine, resounding among the trees like a language full of wars and songs.

Life is so short. Forgetting is so long

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Love is so short, and forgetting takes so long.

White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul You live again in time, slender and silent.

Oh to follow the road that leads away from everything, without anguish, death, winter waiting along it with their eyes open through the dew.

WANT TO DO WITH YOU WHAT SPRING DOES WITH THE CHERRY TREES.” Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair *

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world, lying in surrender.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you are absent distant and full of sorrow as though you had died One word then, one smile is enough And I'm happy; happy that it's not true

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.

Your house sounds like a train at midday, the wasps buzz, the saucepans sing, the waterfall enumerates the deeds of the dew . . .

Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como austente y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca. Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca. Como todas las cosas estan llenas de mi alma emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mia. Mariposa de sueno, te pareces a mi alma, y te pareces a la palabra melancolia.

Sometimes a piece of the sun burned like a coin between my hands.

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world, lying in surrender. My rough peasant's body digs in you and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth. I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me, and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion. To survive myself I forged you like a weapon, like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling. But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you. Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk. Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence! Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad! Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace. My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road! Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

Laugh at the night, at the day, at the moon, laugh at the twisted streets of the island, laugh at this clumsy boy who loves you, but when I open my eyes and close them, when my steps go, when my steps return, deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for I would die.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her, And the verse falls to the snow like dew to the pasture.

And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy. It climbs the same way on damp walls. You are to blame for this cruel sport. They are fleeing from my dark lair. You fill everything, you fill everything. Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy, and they are more used to my sadness than you are. Now I want them to say what I want to say to you to make you hear as I want you to hear me.

ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

Tonight I Can Write

Dark is the world’s night without you my love,

I learned about life from life itself, love I learned in a single kiss and could teach no one anything except that I have lived with something in common among men, when fighting with them, when saying all their say in my song. Pablo Neruda- "Ode to the Book,

My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose. I love what I do not have. You are so far. My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.

I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short; forgetting is so long.

deny me bread, air, light, spring, but never your laughter for I would die.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor y es tan largo el olvido. Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos, mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido. Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa, y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.

I have named you queen. There are taller ones than you, taller. There are purer ones than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier.   But you are the queen.

But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel. You were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves. Behind the nocturnal mountains, white lily of conflagration, ah, I can say nothing!  You were made of everything.

Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is starry and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

And let me talk to you with your silence that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring. You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations. Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

You keep only darkness, my distant female, from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

...And I watch my words from a long way off.. They are more YOURS than mine.. They climb on my old suffering like ivy...

This was my destiny and in it was the voyage of my longing, and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Te amo sin saber como, ni cuándo, ni de dónde, te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo: asi te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera

tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía, tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away?

Bring your substance deep down to me, heavily, covering my eyes, let your existence cut across me, supposing that my heart is destroyed.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated, From you the wings of the songbirds rose.

we shall always be, you and i, alone upon the earth, to begin life.

Only with kisses and red poppies can I love you, with rain-soaked wreaths, contemplating ashen horses and yellow dogs. Only with waves at my back can I love you, between dull explosions of brimstone and reflective waters, swimming against cemeteries that circulate in certain rivers, drowned pasture flooding the sad, chalky tombstones, swimming across submerged hearts and faded lists of unburied children.

Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks" All those men were there inside, when she came in totally naked. They had been drinking: they began to spit. Newly come from the river, she knew nothing. She was a mermaid who had lost her way. The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh. Obscenities drowned her golden breasts. Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears. Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes. They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs, and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor. She did not speak because she had no speech. Her eyes were the colour of distant love, her twin arms were made of white topaz. Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light, and suddenly she went out by that door. Entering the river she was cleaned, shining like a white stone in the rain, and without looking back she swam again swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche. Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

My kisses fell, happy as embers.

But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, you occupy everything.

Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away?

Settle your perfect hips here and the bow of wet arrows loosens into the night the petals that form your form let your clay limbs climb the silence and its pale ladder rung by rung taking off with me in my dream. I can sense you scaling the shade tree that sings to the shadows. Dark is the world’s night without you my love,

So that you will hear me my words sometimes grow thin as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches. Necklace, drunken bell for your hands smooth as grapes. And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy. It climbs the same way on damp walls. You are to blame for this cruel sport. They are fleeing from my dark lair. You fill everything, you fill everything. Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy, and they are more used to my sadness than you are. Now I want them to say what I want to say to you to make you hear as I want you to hear me. The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual. Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over. You listen to other voices in my painful voice. Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications. Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me. Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish. But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, you occupy everything. I am making them into an endless necklace for your white hands, smooth as grapes.

Here I love you. In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself. The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters. Days, all one kind, go chasing each other. The snow unfurls in dancing figures. A silver gull slips down from the west. Sometimes a sail. High, high stars. Oh the black cross of a ship. Alone. Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet. Far away the sea sounds and resounds. This is a port. Here I love you. Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain. I love you still among these cold things. Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels that cross the sea towards no arrival. I see myself forgotten like those old anchors. The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there. My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose. I love what I do not have. You are so far. My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights. But night comes and starts to sing to me. The moon turns its clockwork dream. The biggest stars look at me with your eyes. And as I love you, the pines in the wind want to sing your name with their leaves of wire. Pablo Neruda

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

 XII Para Mi Corazon (Your Breast is Enough)" Your breast is enough for my heart, and my wings for your freedom. What was sleeping above your soul will rise out of my mouth to heaven. In you is the illusion of each day. You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers. You undermine the horizon with your absence. Eternally in flight like the wave. I have said that you sang in the wind like the pines and like the masts. Like them you are tall and taciturn, and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage. You gather things to you like an old road. You are peopled with echoes and nostalgic voices. I awoke and at times birds fled and migrated that had been sleeping in your soul.

The Potter Your whole body is A glass of wine Or sweetness destined for me. When I raise my hand, I find in every place a dove Seeking for me, As if, my love, You were made of clay For my very hands of a potter. Your knees, your breasts, Your waist, Disappear in me like in a hollow Of a thirsting earth Where they lose A form, And together We become like a single river, Like a single grain of sand.

Between the lips and the voice something goes dying.

as if I had never walked except with you, my heart, as if I could not walk except with you, as if I could not sing except when you sing.

I want to fill my mouth with your name.

..her eyes were the color of faraway love her arms were matching topazes her lips moved soundlessly in the coral light and ultimately, she left by the door..

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all timetables.

To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses---that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being and unites all living things.

My love, suddenly your hip is the curve of the wineglass filled to the brim, your breast is the cluster, your hair the light of alcohol, your nipples, the grapes your navel pure seal stamped on your barrel of a belly, and your love the cascade of unquenchable wine, the brightness that falls on my senses, the earthen splendor of life.

My struggle is harsh and I come back with eyes tired at times from having seen the unchanging earth, but when your laughter enters it rises to the sky seeking me and it opens for me all the doors of life.

Every Day You Play.... Every day you play with the light of the universe. Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water, You are more than this white head that I hold tightly as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands. You are like nobody since I love you. Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed. Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window. The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish. Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. The rain takes off her clothes. The birds go by, fleeing. The wind.  The wind. I alone can contend against the power of men. The storm whirls dark leaves and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky. You are here.  Oh, you do not run away. You will answer me to the last cry. Curl round me as though you were frightened. Even so, a strange shadow once ran through your eyes. Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it. While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth. How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans. My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. Until I even believe that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente, y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca. Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca. . Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía. Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma, y te pareces a la palabra melancolía. . Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante. Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo. Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza: Déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo. . Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo. Eres como la noche, callada y constelada. Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo. . Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente. Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto. Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan. Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.

​ Entonces,dónde estabas? Entre qué gentes? Diciendo qué palabras? Por qué se me vendrá todo el amor de golpe Cuando me siento triste,y te siento tan lejana?

I remembered you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know.

But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me.

Who are those who suffer? I do not know, but they are my people.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, distant and full of sorrow as though you had died. One word then, one smile, is enough. And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

I Ask for Silence" Now they can leave me in peace. Now they grow used to my absence. I am going to close my eyes. I want only five things, five chosen roots. One is an endless love. Two is to see the autumn. I cannot exist without leaves flying and falling to the earth. The third is the solemn winter, the rain I loved, the caress of fire in the rough cold. Fourth, the summer, plump as a watermelon. And fifthly, your eyes, Matilde, my dear love, I won’t sleep without your eyes, I won’t exist without your gaze, I adjust the spring for you to follow me with your eyes. That, friends, is all I want. Next to nothing, close to everything. Now they can go if they wish. I have lived so much that some day they will have to forget me forcibly, rubbing me off the blackboard. My heart was inexhaustible. But because I ask for silence, don’t think I’m going to die. The opposite is true; it happens I am going to live. To be, and to go on being. I will not be, however, if inside me, the crop does not keep sprouting, the shoots first, breaking through the earth to reach the light; but the mothering earth is dark, and, deep inside me, I am dark. I am a well in the water of which the night leaves behind stars and goes on alone across fields. It’s a question of having lived so much that I want to live a bit more. I never felt my voice so clear, never have been so rich in kisses. Now, as always, it is early. The light is a swarm of bees. Let me alone with the day. I ask leave to be born.

I have said that you sang in the wind like the pines and like the masts. Like them you are tall and taciturn, and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage. You gather things to you like an old road. You are peopled with echoes and nostalgic voices. I awoke and at times birds fled and migrated that had been sleeping in your soul.

I want you to know one thing.   You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.   Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little.   If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you.   If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land.   But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

and when a leaf falls from the climbing vines, you know, my love, what name is written on that leaf, a name that is yours and mine, our love name, a single being, the arrow that pierced winter, the invincible love, the fire of the days, a leaf that dropped upon my breast, a leaf from the tree of life that made a nest and sang, that put out roots, that gave flowers and fruits. And so you see, my love, how I move around the island, around the world, safe in the midst of spring, crazy with light in the cold, walking tranquil in the fire, lifting your petal weight in my arms as if I had never walked except with you, my heart, as if I could not walk except with you, as if I could not sing except when you sing.

In you the rivers sing and my soul flees in them as you desire, and you send it where you will. Aim my road on your bow of hope and in a frenzy I will free my flock of arrows.

I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin in my hand.

Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs of goodbye, the wind, travelling, waving them in its hands.

The numberless heart of the wind beating above our loving silence. Orchestral and divine, resounding among the trees like a language full of wars and songs.

I like for you to be still, and you are still far away.

Quero fazer contigo o que a primavera faz com as cerejeiras.

and in your life my infinite dreams live.

I go so far as to think you own the universe.

The moon turns its clockwork dream. The biggest stars look at me with your eyes. And as I love you, the pines in the wind want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, you occupy everything.

Como un vaso albergaste la infinita ternura

. . . they will say: "The one you love, is not a woman for you, Why do you love her? I think you could find one more beautiful, more serious, more deep, more other . . .

You fill everything, you fill everything.

Seviyorum susmanı, yokluk gibisin çünkü, sesim sana varmadan işitiyorsun beni.

Hour of nostalgia, hour of happiness, hour of solitude, hour that is mine from among them all! Hunting horn through which the wind passes singing. Such a passion of weeping tied to my body.

I am hungry for your silken laughter, For your hands the color of savage harvest, Hungry for the pail stones of your fingernails. I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. from “Love Sonnet XI

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look, at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

Pay to go inside Neruda's home A body lies there with no dome. But right there in the front hall Lean a fairy against the icy wall. Oh Endless enigmas had the bard! Nice and large and calm backyard Ends In the middle of a rare room Rare portrait of revelishing gloom. Up climbing at the weird snail stair Does make you grasp for some air. And there's a room with bric-a-brac: Old and precious books all in a pack. Dare saying what I liked most of all? Enjoyed seeing visitors having a ball!

Book, when I close you life itself opens. I hear broken screams in the harbor. The copper slugs cross the sandy areas, descending to Tocopilla. It is night. Between the islands our ocean palpitates with fish. It touches the feet, the thighs, the chalky ribs of my homeland. Night touches the shoreline and rises while singing at daybreak like a guitar awakening. I feel the irresistible force of the ocean's call. I am called by the wind, and called by Rodriguez, José Antonio, I received a telegram from the "Mina" worker's union and the one I love (I won't tell you her name) waits for me in Bucalemu. Book, you haven't been able to enwrap me, you haven't covered me with typography, with celestial impressions, you haven't been able to trap my eyes between covers, I leave you so I can populate groves with the hoarse family of my song, to work burning metals or to eat grilled meat at the fireside in the mountains. I love books that are explorers, books with forest and snow, depth and sky, but I despise the book of spiders that employs thought to weave its venomous wires to trap the young and unsuspecting fly. Book, free me. I don't want to be entombed like a volume, I don't come from a tome, my poems don't eat poems, they devour passionate events, they're nurtured by the open air and fed by the earth and by men. Book, let me wander the road with dust in my low shoes and without mythology: go back to the library while I go into the streets. I've learned to take life from life, to love after a single kiss, and I didn't teach anything to anyone except what I myself lived, what I shared with other men, what I fought along with them: what I expressed from all of us in my song.

The light wraps you in its mortal flame. Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way Against the old propellers of the twilight That revolves around you. Speechless, my friend, Alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead And filled with the lives of fire, Pure heir of the ruined day.

I went up the stairs, I crossed the roads, trains carried me, waters brought me, and in the skin of the grapes I thought I touched you. The wood suddenly brought me your touch, the almond announced to me your secret softness, until your hands closed on my chest and there like two wings they ended their journey.

شعر آخر می توانم امشب غمناک ترین سطرها را بنویسم مثلن بنویسم: ” شب شکسته است وَ تکه تکه می شوند آن ستارگان در دور دست و بر باد می روند” شب- باد، در آسمان می پیچد و می خواند می توانم امشب غمناک ترین سطرها را بنویسم عاشق اش بودم و گاهی هم عاشق ام می شد در شبی این چنین به آغوش اش کشیدم بوسیدم اش بسیار و بسیار زیر آسمان بی انتها عاشق ام بود و گاهی هم عاشق اش می شدم چه گونه می توانستم عاشق آن چشمان درشتِ خاموش اش نباشم می توانم امشب غمناک ترین سطرها را بنویسم برای درکِ این که ندارم اش، برای حسِ این که گم اش کرده ام می شنوم این شب بلند را، که بی او طولانی تر بر روح می نشیند این سطرها، مثل شبنم که بر علف دیگر چه اهمیت دارد، که نتواستم نگه اش دارم شب شکسته ست و او کنارم نیست این تمام ماجراست. کسی در دور دست می خواند. در دور دست روح ام را یارای نبودن اش نیست که انگار در تقلای یافتن اش چشمانم دو دو می زند که قلبم می جویدش: اوکنارم نیست شبی شبیه بر همان شاخ ساران به صبح می رسد مای آن زمان، شبیه حالِ ما نیست بی گمان، عاشقش نیستم اکنون، اما چه گونه زمانی بودم برای رسیدنِ به او، صدایم، به تقلای جستجوی باد است بوسه های دیگران بر لبانش، چون بوسه های من صدایش، تن مرمرین اش، چشمان بی انتهایش بی گمان، عاشق اش نیستم اکنون شاید اما باشم عشق کوتاه است؛ از یاد بردن اش چه طولانی از آن شب ها که در آغوش می کشیدم اش دیگر روحم را یارای نبودن اش نیست هرچند این واپسین عذابی است که مرا دچارش می کند و این واپسین سطرهایی ست که برایش می نویسم

And that's how it was, that night, shadow and space, earth and time, something that runs and falls and passes. And that's how all the nights go over the earth, leaving only a vague black odor. A leaf falls, a drop on the earth muffles its sound, the forest sleeps, the waters, the meadows, the bells, the eyes. I hear you and you breathe, my love, we sleep.

XVI. In My Sky At Twilight" In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud and your form and colour are the way I love them. You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips and in your life my infinite dreams live. The lamp of my soul dyes your feet, My sour wine is sweeter on your lips, oh reaper of my evening song, how solitary dreams believe you to be mine! You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice. Huntress of the depths of my eyes, your plunder stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water. You are taken in the net of my music, my love, and my nets of music are as wide as the sky. My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning. In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin

VI. I Remember You As You Were" I remember you as you were in the last autumn. You were the grey beret and the still heart. In your eyes the flames of twilight fought on. And the leaves fell in the water of your soul. Clasping my arms like a climbing plant the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace. Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning. Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul. I feel your eyes travelling, and the autumn is far off: grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house toward which my deep longings migrated and my kisses fell, happy as embers. Sky from a ship. Field from the hills: Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond! Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing. Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

ALWAYS Facing you I am not jealous. Come with a man at your back, come with a hundred men in your hair, come with a thousand men between your bosom and your feet, come like a river filled with drowned men that meets the furious sea, the eternal foam, the weather. Bring them all where I wait for you: we shall always be alone, we shall always be, you and I, alone upon the earth to begin life.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it. While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth. — Pablo Neruda, from “XIV [Every day you play with the light of the universe.],” Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, in The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, ed. Ilan Stavans (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003)

Lovely one, your eyes are too big for your face, your eyes are too big for the earth. There are countries, there are rivers, in your eyes, my country is your eyes, I walk through them, they light the world through which I walk, lovely one. — Pablo Neruda, from “Lovely One,” The Captain's Verses: Love Poems. (New Directions Publishing Corporation; Bilingual edition July 2004) Originally published 1952.

VIII. White Bee" White bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey, and your flight winds in slow spirals of smoke. I am the one without hope, the word without echoes, he who lost everything and he who had everything. Last hawser, in you creaks my last longing. In my barren land you are the final rose. Ah you who are silent! Let you deep eyes close, There the night flutters. Ah your body, a frightened statue, naked. You have deep eyes in which the night flails. Cool arms of flowers and a lap of rose. Your breasts seem like white snails. A butterfly of shadow has come to rest on your belly. Ah you who are silent! Here is the solitude from which you are absent. It is raining. The sea wind is hunting stray gulls. The water walks barefoot in the wet streets. From that tree the leaves complain as though they were sick. White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul. You live again in time, slender and silent. Ah you who are silent!

LA REINA Yo te he nombrado reina. Hay mas altas que tu mas altas. Hay mas puras que ti, mas puras. Hay mas bellas que tu, hay mas bellas. Pero tu eres la reina. Cuando vas por las calles nadie te reconoce. Nadie ve tu coronoa de cristal, nadie mira la alfombra de oro rojo que pisas cuando pasas, la alfombra que no existe. Y cuando asomas suenan todos los rios en mi cuerpo, sacuden el cielo las campanas, y un himno llena el mundo. Solo tu y yo, solo tu y yo, amor mio., los escuchamos.

Sonnet XII Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon, thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light, what obscure brilliance opens between your columns? What ancient night does a man touch with his senses? 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. Kiss by kiss I move across your small infinity, your borders, your rivers, your tiny villages, and the genital fire transformed into delight runs through the narrow pathways of the blood until it plunges down, like a dark carnation, until it is and is no more than a flash in the night.

X. We Have Lost Even" We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped on the world. I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of the sun burned like a coin between my hands. I remembered you with my soul clenched in the sadness of mine that you know. Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away? The book fell that is always turned to at twilight and my cape rolled like a hurt dog at my feet. Always, always you recede through the evenings towards where the twilight goes erasing statues.

III. Ah Vastness of Pines Ah vastness of pines, murmur of waves breaking, slow play of lights, solitary bell, twilight falling in your eyes, toy doll, earth-shell, in whom the earth sings! In you the rivers sing and my soul flees in them as you desire, and you send it where you will. Aim my road on your bow of hope and in a frenzy I will free my flock of arrows. On all sides I see you waist of fog, and yousilence hunts my afflicted hours; my kisses anchor, and my moist desire nests in you with your arms of transparent stone. Ah your mysterious voice that love tolls and darkens in the resonant and dying evening! Thus in deep hours I have seen, over the fields, the ears of wheat tolling in the mouth of the wind.

II. The Light Wraps You" The light wraps you in its mortal flame. Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way against the old propellers of the twilight that revolves around you Speechless, my friend, alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead and filled with the lives of fire, pure heir of the ruined day. A bough of fruit falls from the sun on your dark garment. The great roots of night grow suddenly from your soul, and things that hide in you come out again so that a blue and pallid people, your newly born, takes nourishment. Oh magnificent and fecund and magnetic slave of the circle that moves in turn through black and gold: rise, lead and possess a creation so rich in life that its flowers perish and it is full of sadness.

I : Body of a Woman" Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world, lying in surrender My rough peasant's body digs into you and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth. I was alone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me, and night swamped me with its crushing invasion. To survive myself I forged you like a weapon, like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling. But the hour of vengeance falls, and a love you. Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk. Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence! Oh the pink roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad! Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace. My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road! Dark River-beds where the eternal thirst flows and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

IX. Drunk With Pines" Drunk with pines and long kisses, like summer I steer the fast sail of the roses, bent towards the death of the thin day, stuck into my solid marine madness. Pale and lashed to my ravenous water, I cruise in the sour smell of the naked climate, still dressed in grey and bitter sounds and a sad crest of abandoned spray. Hardened by passions, I go mounted on my one wave, lunar, solar, burning and cold, all at once, becalmed in the throat of the fortunate isles that are white and sweet as cool hips. In the moist night my garment of kisses trembles charged to insanity with electric currents, heroically divided into dreams and intoxicating roses practicing on me. Upstream, in the midst of the outer waves, your parallel body yields to my arms like a fish infinitely fastened to my soul, quick and slow, in the energy under the sky.

XIII. I Have Gone Marking" I have gone marking the atlas of your body with crosses of fire. My mouth went across: a spider, trying to hide. In you, behind you, timid, driven by thirst. Stories to tell you on the shore of evening, sad and gentle doll, so that you should not be sad. A swan, a tree, something far away and happy. The season of grapes, the ripe and fruitful season. I who lived in a harbour from which I loved you. The solitude crossed with dream and with silence. Penned up between the sea and sadness. Soundless, delirious, between two motionless gondoliers. Between the lips and the voice something goes dying. Something with the wings of a bird, something of anguish and oblivion. The way nets cannot hold water. My toy doll, only a few drops are left trembling. Even so, something sings, something climbs to my ravenous mouth. Oh to be able to celebrate you with all the words of joy. Sing, burn, flee, like a belfry at the hands of a madman. My sad tenderness, what comes over you all at once? When I have reached the most awesome and the coldest summit my heart closes like a nocturnal flower.

V. So That You Will Hear Me" So that you will hear me my words sometimes grow thin as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches. Necklace, drunken bell for your hands smooth as grapes. And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy. It climbs the same way on damp walls. You are to blame for this cruel sport. They are fleeing from my dark lair. You fill everything, you fill everything. Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy, and they are more used to my sadness than you are. Now I want them to say what I want to say to you to make you hear as I want you to hear me. The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual. Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over. You listen to other voices in my painful voice. Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications. Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me. Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish. But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, you occupy everything. I am making them into an endless necklace for you white hands, smooth as grapes.

Almost Out Of The Sky" Almost out of the sky, half of the moon anchors between two mountains. Turning, wandering night, the digger of eyes. Let’s see how many stars are smashed in the pool. It makes a cross of mourning between my eyes, and runs away. Forge of blue metals, nights of stilled combats, my heart revolves like a crazy wheel. Girl who have come from so far, been brought from so far, sometimes your glance flashes out under the sky. Rumbling, storm, cyclone of fury, you cross above my heart without stopping. Wind from the tombs carries off, wrecks, scatters your sleepy root. The big trees on the other side of her, unprooted. But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel. You were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves. Behind the nocturnal mountains, white lily of conflagration, ah, I can say nothing! You were made of everything. Longing that sliced my breast into pieces, it is time to take another road, on which she does not smile. Storm that buries the bells, muddy swirl of torments, why touch her now, why make her sad. Oh to follow the road that leads away from everything, without anguish, death, winter waiting along it with their eyes open through the dew

Every Day You Play" Every day you play with the light of the universe. Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water. You are more than this white head that I hold tightly as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands. You are like nobody since I love you. Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed. Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window. The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish. Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. The rain takes off her clothes. The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. The wind. I can contend only against the power of men. The storm whirls dark leaves and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky. You are here. Oh, you do not run away. You will answer me to the last cry. Cling to me as though you were frightened. Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes. Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it. While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth. How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans. My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. I go so far as to think that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

XIV [Every day you play with the light of the universe.]” Every day you play with the light of the universe. Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water. You are more than this white head that I hold tightly as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands. You are like nobody since I love you. Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed. Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window. The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish. Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. The rain takes off her clothes. The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. The wind. I can contend only against the power of men. The storm whirls dark leaves and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky. You are here. Oh, you do not run away. You will answer me to the last cry. Cling to me as though you were frightened. Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes. Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it. While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth. How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans. My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. I go so far as to think that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees. Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Trans. W.S. Merwin (Penguin Classics; Bilingual edition, December 26, 2006)

Sweetness, Always" Why such harsh machinery? Why, to write down the happenings and people of every day, must poems be dressed up in gold, in old and grim stone? I prefer verses of felt or feather which scarcely weigh, soft verses with the intimacy of beds where people have loved and dreamed. I prefer poems stained by hands and everydayness. Verses of pastry that melt into milk and sugar in the mouth, air and water to drink, the bites and kisses of love. I long for eatable sonnets, poems of flour and honey. Vanity keeps nudging us to lift ourselves skyward or to make deep and useless tunnels underground. So we forget the joyous love-needs of our bodies. We forget about pastries. We are not feeding the world. In Madras a long time since, I saw a sugary pyramid, a tower of confectionery— one level after another, and in the construction, rubies, and other blushing delights, medieval and yellow. Someone soiled his hands to cook up so much sweetness. Brother poets from here and there, from earth and sky, from Medellín, from Veracruz, Abyssinia, Antofagasta, do you know how to make a honeycomb? Let’s forget about all that stone. Let your poetry fill up the equinoctial pastry shop our mouths long to devour— the mouths of all the children and the poor adults also. Don’t go on without seeing, relishing, understanding so many hearts of sugar. Don’t be afraid of sweetness. With us or without us, sweetness will go on living and is infinitely alive, and forever being revived, for it’s in the mouth, whether singing or eating, that sweetness belongs. Pablo Neruda, Paris Review, Issue 57 Spring 1974

In you is the illusion of each day. You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers. You undermine the horizon with your absence. Eternally in flight like the wave.

We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped out of the world. I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin between my hands. I remembered you with my soul clenched in the sadness of mine that you know. Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I have sad and feel you are far away? The book fell that is always turned to at twilight and my cape rolled like a hurt dog at my feet. Always, always you recede through the evenings towards where the twilight goes erasing statues.

How you must have suffered against getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.

We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped out of the world. I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin between my hands. I remembered you with my soul clenched in the sadness of mine that you know. Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I have sad and feel you are far away?

This was my destiny and in it was the voyage of my longing, and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long

Apansız niye gelir bilmem bunca aşk bana kendimi böyle üzgün, seni uzak bulurken?

Ah, izlemeli her şeyden uzaklaşan yolu, kesmediği yolu yürek daralmasının, ölümün, kışın, çiyler arasında açılan gözleriyle.

Seviyorum susmanı, yokluk gibisin çünkü. Öyle uzak, acılı, ölüp gitmiş gibi sen. Yeter o zaman bir söz, bir gülümseyiş bile. Sevinirim, başka şey yok öyle sevindiren.

Seviyorum susmanı, uzaklıklar gibisin. İnler gibisin hem de, kuğuran kelebeğim. İşitiyorsun beni sesim sana varmadan: Senin sessizliğinle ben de susayım derim.

In you is the illusion of each day.

Sky from a ship. Field from the hills. Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond! Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing. Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

The book fell that is always turned to at twilight and my cape rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Oh to be able to celebrate you with all the words of joy.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

oh reaper of my evening song, how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!

Huntress of the depths of my eyes, your plunder stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.

I am the one without hope, the word without echoes, he who lost everything and he who had everything.

Last hawser, in you creaks my last longing. In my barren land you are the final rose.

Drunk as drunk on turpentine From your open kisses, Your wet body wedged Between my wet body and the strake Of our boat that is made of flowers, Feasted, we guide it - our fingers Like tallows adorned with yellow metal - Over the sky's hot rim, The day's last breath in our sails. Pinned by the sun between solstice And equinox, drowsy and tangled together We drifted for months and woke With the bitter taste of land on our lips, Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime And the sound of a rope Lowering a bucket down its well. Then, We came by night to the Fortunate Isles, And lay like fish Under the net of our kisses.

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud and your form and colour are the way I love them. You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips and in your life my infinite dreams live. The lamp of my soul dyes your feet, the sour wine is sweeter on your lips, oh reaper of my evening song, how solitary dreams believe you to be mine! You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice. Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water. You are taken in the net of my music, my love, and my nets of music are wide as the sky. My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning. In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin.

Pero no amo tus pies sino porque anduvieron sobre la tierra y sobra el viento y sobre el agua, hasta que me encontraron.

pero al entrar tu risa sube al cielo buscandome y abre para mi todas las puertas de la vida

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her . To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

Cuanto te habrá dolido acostumbrarte a mí, a mi alma sola y salvaje, a mi nombre que todos ahuyentan.

Por que se me vendra todo el ame de golpe cuando me siento triste, y te siento lejana?

ah

own, in

A bough of fruit falls from the sun on your dark garment. The great roots of night grow suddenly from your soul, and things that hide in you come out again so that a blue and pallid people, your newly born, takes nourishment.

Of everything I have seen, it’s you I want to go on seeing: Of everything I’ve touched, it’s your flesh I want to go on touching. I love your orange laughter. I am moved by the sight of you sleeping. — Pablo Neruda, from “Amor,” Intimacies: Poems of Love.(Harper; 1st edition, October 28, 2008)

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me. - Every Day You Play (Juegas Todos Los Días)

My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning. In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins. - In My Sky at Twilight, after Rabindranath Tagore

In you the rivers sing and my soul flies in them as you desire it and to where you will.

You, I remember as you were last autumn. You were the gray beret and the heart in calm. In your eyes clashed the flames of twilight. And the leaves would fall in the water of your soul.

Inclined in the afternoons I throw my sad nets to your ocean eyes. There it strains and blazes in the highest bonfire, my loneliness, flailing arms like a shipwrecked sailor. I make red signals over your eyes, absent, which swell like the sea at the shore of a lighthouse.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

Longing that sliced my breast into pieces, it is time to take another road, on which she does not smile. Storm that buried the bells, muddy swirl of torments, why touch her now, why make her sad.

I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations. Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. I will go so far as to think you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

You have deep eyes in which the night flails. Cool arms of flowers and a lap of rose.

Your whole body is A glass of wine Or sweetness destined for me. When I raise my hand, I find in every place a dove Seeking for me, As if, my love, You were made of clay For my very hands of a potter. Your knees, your breasts, Your waist, Disappear in me like in a hollow Of a thirsting earth Where they lose A form, And together We become like a single river, Like a single grain of sand. — Pablo Neruda, “The Potter,” The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems. (City Lights Publishers; Bilingual edition April 1, 2004) Originally published January 1st 1979.

And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy. It climbs the same way on damp walls. You are to blame for this cruel sport. They are fleeing from my dark lair. You fill everything, you fill everything. Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy, and they are more used to my sadness than you are. ...But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, you occupy everything.

XIV. Every Day You Play" Every day you play with the light of the universe. Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water. You are more than this white head that I hold tightly as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands. You are like nobody since I love you. Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars if the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed. Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window. The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish. Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. The rain takes off her clothes. The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. the wind. I can only contend against the power of men. The storm whirls dark leaves and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky. You are here. Oh you do not run away. You will answer me to the last cry. Cling to me as though you were frightened. Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes. Now, now too, little one, you bring me honey suckle, and even your breasts smell of it. While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth. How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the grey light unwind in turning fans. My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. I go so far as to think that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

XVIII. Here I love You" Here I love you. In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself. The moon glows like phosphorus on the vagrant waters. Days, all one kind, go chasing each other. The snow unfurls in dancing figures. A silver gull slips down from the west. Sometimes a sail. High, high stars. Oh the black cross of a ship. Alone. Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet. Far away the sea sounds and resounds. This is a port. Here I love you. Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain. I love you still among these cold things. Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels that cross the sea toward no arrival. I see myself forgotten like those old anchors. The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there. My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose. I love what I do not have. You are so far. My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights. But night comes and starts to sing to me. The moon turns its clockwork dream. The biggest stars look at me with your eyes. And as I love you, the pines in the wind want to sing you name with their leaves of wire.

XVII. Thinking, Tangling Shadows" Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude. You are far away too, oh farther than anyone. Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images, burying lamps. Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there! Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes, taciturn miller, night falls on you face downward, far from the city. You presence is foreign, as strange to me as a thing. I think, I explore great tracts of my life before you. My life before anyone, my harsh life. The shout facing the sea, among the rocks, running free, mad, in the sea-spray. The sad rage, the shout, the solitude of the sea. Headlong, violent, stretched towards the sky. You, woman, what were you there, what ray, what vane of that immense fan? You were as far as you are now. Fire in the forest! Burn in blue crosses. Burn, burn, flame up, sparkle in trees of light. It collapses, crackling. Fire. Fire. And my soul dances, seared with curls of fire. Who calls? What silence peopled with echoes? Hour of nostalgia, hour of happiness, hour of solitude, hour that is mine from among them all! Hunting horn through which the wind passes singing. Such a passion of weeping tied to my bedy. Shaking of all the roots, attack of all the waves! My soul wandered, happy, sad, unending. Thinking, burying lamps in the deep solitude. Who are you, who are you?

XV. I Like For You To Be Still" I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you. It seems as though your eyes had flow away and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth. As all things are filled with my soul you emerge from the things, filled with my soul. You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream, and you are like the word Melancholy. I like for you to be still, and you seem far away. It souds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove. And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you: Let me come to be still in your silence. And let me talk to you with your silence that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring. You are like the night, with its stillness and constallations. Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid. I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, distant and full of sorrow as though you had died. One word then, one smile, is enough. And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

XI. Almost Out Of The Sky" Almost out of the sky, half of the moon anchors between two mountains. Turning, wandering night, the digger of eyes. Let's see how many stars are smashed in the pool. It makes a cross of mourning between my eyes, and runs away. Forge of blue metals, nights of stilled combats, my heart revolves like a crazy wheel. Girl who have come from so far, been brought from so far, sometimes your glance flashes out under the sky. Rumbling, storm, syclone of fury, you cross above my heart without stopping. Wind from the tombs carries off, wrecks, scatters your sleepy root. The big trees on the other side of her, uprooted. But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel. You were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves. Behind the nocturnal mountains, white lily of conflagration, ah, I can say nothing! You were made of everything. Longing that sliced my breast into pieces, it is time to take another road, on which she does not smile. Storm that buried the bells, muddy swirl of torments, why touch her now, why make her sad. Oh to follow the road that leads away from everything, without anguish, death, winter waiting along it with their eyes open through the dew.

Ma eccola qui, la tua forma familiare, quel che è mio, il tuo, quel che è mio, quel che è tuo e mi inonda, eccola qui, che mi riempie le membra di abbandono, eccola qui, la tua tenerezza, che si ormeggia alle stesse radici, matura nella stessa carovana di frutti, ed esce dalla tua anima rotta sotto le mie dita come il succo del vino dal centro dell’uva.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me. my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.   To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.   And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.   What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is starry and she is not with me.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body, Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

XIX. Girl Lithe and Tawny" Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms the fruits, that plumps the grains, that curls seaweeds filled your body with joy, and you luminous eyes and your mouth that has the smile of water. A black yearning sun is braided into the strands of your black mane, when you stretch your arms. You play with the sun as with a little brook and it leaves two dark pools in your eyes. Girl lithe and tawny, nothing draws me towrds you. Everything bears me farther away, as though you were noon. You are the frenzied youth of the bee, the drunkenness of the wave, the power of the wheat-ear. My sombre heart searches for you, nevertheless, and I love your joyful body, your slender and flowing voice. Dark butterfly, sweet and definitive like the wheat-field and the sun, the poppy and the water.

XX. Tonight I Can Write" Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not love her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is starry and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk. Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence! Oh the pink roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

I am the one without hope, the word without echoes, he who lost everything and he who had everything

But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, you occupy everything. Pero se van tiñendo con tu amor mis palabras. Todo lo ocupas tú, todo lo ocupas.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees. Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.

A final point on this poem, & RH as a poet. 1 of the great conflation made in criticism of poetry is the terms great & important. They are 2 different things. There are great poets who are not particularly important. In this camp would be an Edgar Allan Poe, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound, Robinson Jeffers, & Countee Cullen, among some others. These are poets for whom there is no doubt that great poetry sprang from. BUT, their work did not have a profound effect on the advancement of the art form of poetry. They were either technically superb craftsmen who were the best at their craft but wrote on things, & in ways, similar to others. They were simply better. Here would be Poe, Kipling, & Cullen. Or they were inventive & unique, but while inspiring devotees, never gave rise to poetic heirs. Here is Dickinson. Or they were hit & miss poets who often set back the art. Here are Neruda- whose great personal, lyric, & love poems in a traditional vein were counterbalanced by his atrociously puerile political & ‘experimental’ poems. Also in this category- despite his High Modernist credentials, is Ezra Pound. Most of his great poems are in ancient forms, in mock fashion. An envelope-pusher he was not- although he spurred TSE to greater heights than he was capable of by himself. Then there is a Jeffers- a poet who was superb; yet mystifyingly left little impact- most likely due to his reclusive personae & political prophesying. Yet all these poets touched the ineffable at least a few times in their careers. A 2nd camp are those poets who are important but not really great poets. Their poems had significant impact on the art, but the poets’ work, overall, rarely touched greatness. In this camp would reside a T.S. Eliot- whose whole career consists of 5 or 6 near-great to great poems & a passel of shit, William Carlos Williams- whose prosaic approach to poetry overshadowed the fact that he only had 10 or 12 good 10 line or less poems in his arsenal, Arthur Rimbaud- whose impact was more on the ‘cult of the poet’ than on the art form, Anna Akhmatova- whose import was more as ‘functional state treasure’ than persuasive writer, Allen Ginsberg- who has 12 or so great poems that showed new boundaries & subject matter could work in poetry, but also wrote a passel of utter doggerel, & Derek Walcott- who, despite early promise, has a body of banal poetry, yet opened the way for several generations of non-European poets’ poetry to find a Western audience. None of these poets will stand too tall in the coming centuries for their work, but- their impact on varied aspects of the art is undeniable. This is the difference between the 2. Greatness is about how much the art succeeds & stands alone, Import is on the non-artistic aspects of the work & poet. Of course, a 3rd category exists for those poets that were great & important. Whose excellence & import is undeniable. In this camp would reside John Donne- the 1st English language poet with a Modern mindset, if not vocabulary, Walt Whitman- whose work revolutionized subject matter, & led to the war against formalism, Charles Baudelaire- who did the same as Whitman in French, Stephane Mallarmé- whose fragmenting of form led directly to Eliot, but whose work has held up far better despite being older, Hart Crane- who created lyric epopee, & whose verse reached in new directions in new ways- cracking the ekstasis of poetry open & truly inventing the REAL Language poetry of the 20th Century, Marina Tsvetaeva & Sylvia Plath- the 2 women who became iconic Feminist heroines with legions of acolytes worldwide, yet wove together brilliant poetry despite mental illnesses, & Wallace Stevens- whose great poetry has given heart to legions of poetry lovers who appreciate games played with beauty & philosophy.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses I write for her.