Pablo Neruda...

[mishubaboolz.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[degram.livejournal.com]

Is this the Alastair Reid translation? do you mind me asking a stupid question?

[mishubaboolz.livejournal.com]

not at all!
To tell ya the truth, i am really not too sure! ( i admit it, I own the poem, but copied and pasted from an internet location I have no idea where!)Sorry!

[degram.livejournal.com]

s'ok! I'll check it against my copies when I get home...there's just something about the "starry night" stanza that seems unfamiliar, and it's one of my favorite poems...actually, favorite's the wrong word...one of my most *applicable* poems! there we go...

thanks for posting it. I needed to meditate on ending relationships. Sigh. ;)

[mishubaboolz.livejournal.com]

Cool, let me know if you find out? I would like to get the MOST correct translation!

[degram.livejournal.com]

Correct Translation? That's, like, the best oxymoron EV-AR. ^^!

[mishubaboolz.livejournal.com]

hehehe... i did say MOST Correct.... ;)

[agata.livejournal.com]

I think it's W.S. Merwin.

[degram.livejournal.com]

It absolutely is.

_Selected Poems_, Houghton Mifflin. Had it here all along. I shoulda waited to get home from work to check if before posting.

Thanks!

[rashelly.livejournal.com]

That's so perfect, thank you for posting it. :)

[mishubaboolz.livejournal.com]

I love it as well.... I am glad you enjoyed it :)

[aerdna.livejournal.com]

pablo neruda is one of my favorite poets, and this poem in particular always strikes a certain chord within me. thanks for posting this. :-)

[mishubaboolz.livejournal.com]

My pleasure!

[agata.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you for this. Neruda always gets me all teared up.

[mishubaboolz.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! I was introduced to this poem in particular at a time in my life that it just 'fit', if you know what I mean. I always seem to get lost in it, even though I have read it a million times.