sometimes the saddest lines can be the most beautiful
Before the Barbie’s Dead show on Friday, I decided to head up early to Garden State Plaza Mall to just get lost for a while and relax. If there’s one thing I’m definitely good at, it’s being able to just lose myself anyplace I decide to go. I knew there was a Borders bookstore, so I decided to go there first.........just to get the book craving out of the way.
As an English major (and even prior to that), I’ve always enjoyed reading books. I always managed to lose myself in a good book, blocking out whatever background noise there may be. A woman at the mall even asked me how I could read with all the people around me. It’s simple, really: I just get engrossed in a good story. I become like one with the setting and the characters and the dialogue. To satisfy my book craving, I ended up purchasing two Jane Austen novels (Mansfield Park and Emma) and a book of poetry by Pablo Neruda.
While Mansfield Park is thoroughly engrossing, there was something about the poetry that really grabbed me. It was aptly titled Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. When I ended up venturing into Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch, I opened up the book of poetry and managed bitefuls of turkey burger sliders with salad while I perched the book in my other hand. Neruda truly has a way with taking the beauty in nature and applying it in a very romantic way. When I reached the last love poem, I almost stopped dead in my tracks. The words to this poem were absolutely mind-blowing. I felt like it was speaking the language of my life and I had to read it at least 4 more times over, letting the words sink in.
The name of the poem is "Tonight I Can Write" and basically it is about a man who realizes his feelings about the woman he loved and gave up. Reading how he wishes that he could be with her once again, but knowing that it will never be and he needs to move forward. It’s sad but beautiful. Very few poems can touch me the way this one has, with such a bittersweet sadness. I cannot wait to buy more Pablo Neruda poetry. For your viewing, here is the poem in question. I hope you all enjoy it just as much as I have.
~Jenn~
Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda
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.
As an English major (and even prior to that), I’ve always enjoyed reading books. I always managed to lose myself in a good book, blocking out whatever background noise there may be. A woman at the mall even asked me how I could read with all the people around me. It’s simple, really: I just get engrossed in a good story. I become like one with the setting and the characters and the dialogue. To satisfy my book craving, I ended up purchasing two Jane Austen novels (Mansfield Park and Emma) and a book of poetry by Pablo Neruda.
While Mansfield Park is thoroughly engrossing, there was something about the poetry that really grabbed me. It was aptly titled Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. When I ended up venturing into Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch, I opened up the book of poetry and managed bitefuls of turkey burger sliders with salad while I perched the book in my other hand. Neruda truly has a way with taking the beauty in nature and applying it in a very romantic way. When I reached the last love poem, I almost stopped dead in my tracks. The words to this poem were absolutely mind-blowing. I felt like it was speaking the language of my life and I had to read it at least 4 more times over, letting the words sink in.
The name of the poem is "Tonight I Can Write" and basically it is about a man who realizes his feelings about the woman he loved and gave up. Reading how he wishes that he could be with her once again, but knowing that it will never be and he needs to move forward. It’s sad but beautiful. Very few poems can touch me the way this one has, with such a bittersweet sadness. I cannot wait to buy more Pablo Neruda poetry. For your viewing, here is the poem in question. I hope you all enjoy it just as much as I have.
~Jenn~
Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda
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.