Love is so short, forgetting so long...
"Tonight I Can Write..."
-- Pablo Neruda
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 and 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 ground like dew to a 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 if 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 is 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 is 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 she makes me suffer
And these the last verses that I write for her.
"If You Forget Me"
-- Pablo Neruda
I want you to know
One thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at he 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, lights, metals
were little boats that sail
towards 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
where my heart has 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.
BACK
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page