...Love is so short, and forgetting is so long...
This poem broke my heart.
I can write the saddest verses
From "Twenty Love Poems" --Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest verse tonight.
Write, for example "The night is shattered with stars,
twinkling blue, in the distance."
The night wind spins and th sky sings.
I can write the saddest verses 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 beneath the infinite sky.
She loved me, at times I loved her too.
How not to have loved her great still eyes.
I can write the saddest verse tonight.
To think that I don't have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls onto my soul like dew onto grass.
What difference that my love could not keep her.
The night's shattered, full of stars, and she is not with me.
That's all. In the distance, someone sings. In the
distance.
My soul is not at peace with having lost her.
As if to bring her closer, my gaze searches for her,
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, of then, now are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, it's true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched for the wind that would touch her ear.
Another's. She will be another's. As before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not at peace with having lost her.
Though this my be the final sorrow she causes me,
and these the last verses I write for her.
Translated by Mark Eisner
I can write the saddest verses
From "Twenty Love Poems" --Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest verse tonight.
Write, for example "The night is shattered with stars,
twinkling blue, in the distance."
The night wind spins and th sky sings.
I can write the saddest verses 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 beneath the infinite sky.
She loved me, at times I loved her too.
How not to have loved her great still eyes.
I can write the saddest verse tonight.
To think that I don't have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls onto my soul like dew onto grass.
What difference that my love could not keep her.
The night's shattered, full of stars, and she is not with me.
That's all. In the distance, someone sings. In the
distance.
My soul is not at peace with having lost her.
As if to bring her closer, my gaze searches for her,
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, of then, now are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, it's true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched for the wind that would touch her ear.
Another's. She will be another's. As before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not at peace with having lost her.
Though this my be the final sorrow she causes me,
and these the last verses I write for her.
Translated by Mark Eisner