I Love You

I do not love you as if you were the 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...

~Pablo Neruda (Sonnet XVII)

Saddest Poem

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.


~Pablo Neruda

Us roz...

Log kahte hain, hui thhi baarish us roz,
unhe kya pata, gham-e-hiz mein roya thha koi,

yun saaye dekh kar khush hote hain sab ghafil,
unhe kya pata kal dhoop mein soya thha koi,

qatra qatra kar ke muskurate hain sabhi,
unhe kya pata chashm-e-tar mein soya thha koi,

manzil-e-aakhir ko ab chalte hain raahil,
unhe kya pata in raahon par soya thha koi ...