Poetry

Generally, I reserve this space for work-related notions. Being that today is Valentine's Day, I will make an exception, and reserve this space for love and emotion.
Poetry is a painful thing. This, I know. I'm not surprised that it went out of fashion as technology advanced us into the 21st Century. I am, though, charmed by the thoughts and actions of poets.
When I think of expressions of sentiment, I think of Pablo Neruda. He has been a personal favorite of mine for years. To me, he just knew how to grab hold of both happiness and heartache, and phrase them in such a way, so as to be accessible in a multitude of translations. So, here is Neruda the lover. Neruda the cynic. Neruda the person.



From--20 Poems of Love
(translated from Spanish)

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: 'The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars in the distance.'

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don't have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn't keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me

The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don't love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another's kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don't love her, that's certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.