By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two together in their sleep will defeat the darkness
Love is not about property, diamonds and gifts. It is about sharing your very self with the world around you.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Only do not forget, if I wake up crying
it’s only because in my dream i’m a lost child
hunting through the leaves of the night for your hands….
You can crush the flowers, but you can’t stop the spring.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
write, for instance: “the night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”
the night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all 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 under the infinite sky.
she loved me, sometimes I loved her.
how could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
to think I don’t have her. To feel that i’ve lost her.
to hear the immense night, more immense without her.
and the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.
what does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her.
the night is full of stars and she is not with me.
that’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
my soul is lost without her.
as if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
my heart searches for her and she is not with me.
the same night that whitens the same trees.
we, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
my voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
someone else’s. She will be someone else’s. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
love is so short and oblivion so long.
because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
If nothing saves us from death, at least love should save us from life
We must dream our way.
But from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out in you where the heart lies.
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.
In this part of the story I am the one who
dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
because I love you, love, in fire and in blood.
Don’t go far off, not even for a day,
because I don’t know how to say it – a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in
an empty station when the trains are
parked off somewhere else, asleep.
don’t leave me, even for an hour, because then
the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
oh, may your silhouette never dissolve
on the beach, may your eyelids never flutter
into the empty distance. Don’t leave me for
a second, my dearest, because in that moment you’ll
have gone so far i’ll wander mazily
over all the earth, asking, will you
come back? will you leave me here, dying?.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.
Your wide eyes are the only light I know from extinguished constellations.
And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, I felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.
He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.
Then love knew it was called love.
and when I lifted my eyes to your name,
suddenly your heart showed me my way.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
This time is difficult. Wait for me. We will live it out vividly. Give me your small hand: we will rise and suffer, we will feel, we will rejoice. We are once more the pair who lived in bristling places, in harsh nests in the rock. This time is difficult. Wait for me with a basket, with a shovel, with your shoes and your clothes. Now we need each other, not only for the carnations’ sake, not only to look for honey — we need our hands to wash with, to make fire.
Only a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness.
Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.
Of everything I have seen, it’s you I want to go on seeing: of everything I’ve touched, it’s your flesh I want to go on touching. I love your orange laughter. I am moved by the sight of you sleeping. What am I to do, love, loved one? I don’t know how others love or how people loved in the past. I live, watching you, loving you. Being in love is my nature.
I am no longer in love with her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
We are dust and to dust return. In the end we’re neither air, nor fire, nor water, just dirt, neither more nor less, just dirt, and maybe some yellow flowers.
You must know that I do not love and that I love you, because everything alive has its two sides; a word is one wing of silence, fire has its cold half. I love you in order to begin to love you, to start infinity again and never to stop loving you: that’s why I do not love you yet. I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held keys in my hand: to a future of joy- a wretched, muddled fate- My love has two lives, in order to love you. -Sonnet XLIV
Well, now
if little by little you stop loving me
i shall stop loving you
little by little
if suddenly you forget me
do not look for me
for I shall already have forgotten you
if you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life
and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots
remember
that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off to seek another land.
We the mortals touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all the these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye.
I will bring you flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
And when you appear all the rivers sound in my body, bells shake the sky, and a hymn fills the world.
The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
At night I dream that you and I are two plants that grew together, roots entwined, and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth, since we are made of earth and rain.
Take it all back. Life is boring, except for flowers, sunshine, your perfect legs. A glass of cold water when you are really thirsty. The way bodies fit together. Fresh and young and sweet. Coffee in the morning. These are just moments. I struggle with the in-betweens. I just want to never stop loving like there is nothing else to do, because what else is there to do?
If you forget me
i want you to know
one thing.
you know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
i shall stop loving you little by little.
if suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
if you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
i shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
but
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.
You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.
I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier. But you are the queen.
Under your skin the moon is alive.
In the distance someone is singing.
In one kiss, you’ll know all I haven’t said.
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
i hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
i hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
i want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
i want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
i want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of quitratue.
Then love knew it was called love. And when I lifted my eyes to your name, suddenly your heart showed me my way
Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence, without you moving, slicing the noon like a blue flower, without you walking later through the fog and the cobbles, without the light you carry in your hand, golden, which maybe others will not see, which maybe no one knew was growing like the red beginnings of a rose. In short, without your presence: without your coming suddenly, incitingly, to know my life, gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind: since then I am because you are, since then you are, I am, we are, and through love I will be, you will be, we will be.
Laughter is the language of the soul.
You are like nobody since I love you.
I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier. But you are the queen. When you go through the streets No one recognizes you. No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks At the carpet of red gold That you tread as you pass, The nonexistent carpet. And when you appear All the rivers sound In my body, bells Shake the sky, And a hymn fills the world. Only you and I, Only you and I, my love, Listen to it.
I love you between shadow and soul. I love you as the plant that hasn’t bloomed yet, and carries hidden within itself the light of flowers. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. Because of you, the dense fragrance that rises from the earth lives in my body, rioting with hunger for the eternity of our victorious kisses.
My feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping
but
i shall go on living.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
i love you simply, without problems or pride:
i love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving.
I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.
Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us.
so I wait for you like a lonely house till you will see me again and live in me. Till then my windows ache.
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
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
make to me an irreperable 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 precipitate desires:
shooting stars, falling objects.
As if you were on fire from within.
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
What did the earth teach the trees?
How to speak to the sky.
There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song – but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.
So I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
till then my windows ache.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
I love all the things there are,
and of all fires
love is the only inexhaustible one;
and that’s why I go from life to life.
It was my destiny to love and say goodbye.
Someday, somewhere – anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
If each day falls
inside each night,
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.
We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.
All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems dead
And later proves to be alive
Never an illness, nor the absence of grandeur, no, nothing is able to kill the best in us, that kindness, dear sir, we are afflicted with: beautiful is the flower of man, his conduct, and every door opens on the beautiful truth and never hides treacherous whispers. I always gained something from making myself better, better than I am, better than I was, that most subtle citation: to recover some lost petal of the sadness I inherited: to search once more for the light that sings inside of me, the unwavering light.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
i loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.
You are like night, calmed, constellated. Your silence is star-like, as distant, as true.
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