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.
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.
4 comments:
Neruda<3
Hi Kelley, does this poem have an author? How did you come across it? What do you like about it?
Pablo Neruda is the author of the poem and my English teacher senior year loves this poem and it just stuck out to me as a love poem that is unusual from some the line, "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." This line was one that I believe defines love the best and I have seen it as a poem of inspiration and true feeling
this kind of reminds me of a sonnet by Edna Saint Vincent Millay (I heard about her because my mom had a book of her sonnet's that she got when she was about my age and when cleaning out the house one day she handed it to me and told me she thought I would like it)
this particular sonnet starts off:
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,-no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,--
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