I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

Love Sonnet XXI

Love, how often I loved you without seeing without remembering you-
not recognizing your glance, not knowing you, a gentian
in the wrong place, scorching in the hot noon,
but I loved only the smell of the wheat.

Or maybe I saw you, imagined you lifting a wineglass
in Angol, by the light of the summer's Moon;
or were you the waist of that guitar I strummed
in the shadows, the one that rang like an impetuous sea?

I loved you without knowing I did; I searched to remember you.
I broke into houses to steal your likeness,
though I already knew what you were like. And, suddenly,

when you were there with me I touched you, and my life
stopped: you stood before me, you took dominion like a queen:
like a wildfire in the forest, and the flame is your dominion.

*Pablo Neruda

he light wraps / En su llama mortal

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 the 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. ...


En su llama mortal la luz te envuelve.
Absorta, pálida doliente, así situada
contra las viejas hélices del crepúsculo
que en torno a ti da vueltas.

Muda, mi amiga,
sola en lo solitario de esta hora de muertes
y llena de las vidas del fuego,
pura heredera del día destruido.

Del sol cae un racimo en tu vestido oscuro.
De la noche las grandes raíces
crecen de súbito desde tu alma,
y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas,
de modo que un pueblo pálido y azul
de ti recién nacido se alimenta.

Oh grandiosa y fecunda y magnética esclava
del círculo que en negro y dorado sucede:
erguida, trata y logra una creación tan viva
que sucumben sus flores, y llena es de tristeza.

LOVE

Because of you, in
gardens of blossoming
flowers
I ache from the
perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your
face,
I no longer remember
your hands;
how did your lips feel on
mine?
Because of you, I love
the white statues
drowsing in the parks
the white statues that
have neither voice nor
sight.
I have forgotten your
voice, your happy voice;
I have forgotten your
eyes.
Like a flower to its
perfume,
I am bound to my
vague memory of you.
I live with pain that is
like a wound;
if you touch me, you will
do me irreparable harm.
Your caresses enfold
me,
like climbing vines on
melancholy walls.
I have forgotten your
love,
yet I seem to glimpse
you in every window.
Because of you, the
heady perfumes of
summer pain me;
because of you, I again
seek out the signs that
precipitates desires:
shooting stars and
falling objects.

The Broken Window

Ogolla peeps through the broken window
Ogolla is interested in the naked widow
He hears her sing the songs of 'nindo'
and hopes the vocalist vocals his botanic name
for this is a song not a game
and guess what? It doesn't end with anyone at fame
if anything, the broken window is to blame.

Ogolla breaks through the broken window
and pounces in Atieno's bed
the chief's girl his brother wed,
in summer last month on a wed'
Ogolla grins at the naked widow
like a green gecko in a Japanese ghetto

Atieno knows better than any woman does
It is a taboo to shout, slap or slander a man
so she stands attention holding no gun
because the society demands that this be done
so she calms and listens to the orders at hand
hopping harry potter was here with his wand.

Her pointed nubile nipples point at the daring Ogolla
dare not do and face the wrath of 'chira'
"if a man gets into a bereaved woman's house,
be it dusty and smelling a dead mouse,
the book says they must 'nindo'"
so dare not do and face the wrath of 'chira'.

Atieno is shy and more than tensed
the candle' dim embers reveals her angelic face
"come babie come Ogolla," says
and the lady is confused if to snear or grimace
wind blows east and west like a horse in a satanic race
kriii!!!! kriii!!!! Krriiiiiiiiiiii!!!!
the broken window laughs at the poor widow' grimance
the wooden bed cries at the plight of the widow
Atieno's long silky air is swayed away
the candle is blown by the wind from the window
Atieno's bossoms become Ogolla's pillow
Ogolla fineshes to 'tero' Atieno

(nindo- luo word for sleep; Chira-taboo; tero- to make love)





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Always

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

*Pablo Neruda ...

It’s good to feel you are close to me

It’s good to feel you are close to me in the night, love,
invisible in your sleep, intently nocturnal,
while I untangle my worries
as if they were twisted nets.

Withdrawn, your heart sails through dream,
but your body, relinquished so, breathes
seeking me without seeing me perfecting my dream
like a plant that seeds itself in the dark.

Rising, you will be that other, alive in the dawn,
but from the frontiers lost in the night,
from the presence and the absence where we meet ourselves,

something remains, drawing us into the light of life
as if the sign of the shadows had sealed
its secret creatures with flame.

*Pablo Neruda ...

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 the 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 traveling, and the autumn is far off:
Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house
Towards 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. ...

SONNET XXI

Love, how often I loved you without seeing without remembering you-
not recognizing your glance, not knowing you, a gentian
in the wrong place, scorching in the hot noon,
but I loved only the smell of the wheat.

Or maybe I saw you, imagined you lifting a wineglass
in Angol, by the light of the summer's Moon;
or were you the waist of that guitar I strummed
in the shadows, the one that rang like an impetuous sea?

I loved you without knowing I did; I searched to remember you.
I broke into houses to steal your likeness,
though I already knew what you were like. And, suddenly,

when you were there with me I touched you, and my life
stopped: you stood before me, you took dominion like a queen:
like a wildfire in the forest, and the flame is your dominion.

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 Like For You to be Still

And now you’re mine