20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair

One Hundred Sonnets of Love: XVII

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio

o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:

te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,

secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva

dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,

y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo

el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,

te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:

así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,

tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,

tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

Pablo Neruda writes some of the most beautiful poetry of anyone in the world. His verses are sensual, evocative in their images of love, life, and landscape. Pablo Neruda is revered by many Chileans as a hero, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1971) AND Nobel Peace Prize (1951). He remains a timeless, if not controversial, global icon.

Read more of his literary work - I recommend starting with 20 Poemas de amor y una canción de desperdada (20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair) or 100 Sonnetos de Amor (100 Love Sonnets). Though Neruda has long since passed, his whimsical homes are still primary tourist destinations today in Santiago, Valparaiso, and Isla Negra. Isla Negra, nicknamed for its namesake island, was Neruda’s most intimate home. La Chascona is the name of his home in Santiago, and includes an attached museum. La Sebastiána (pictures below) encompasses a view over the arid hills of Valparaiso towards the Pacific Ocean.

Tonight I can write

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: “La noche está estrellada, y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”.

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche. Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos. La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería. Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche. Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella. Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla. La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos. Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca. Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles. Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise. Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos. Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos, mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa, y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.

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.

But there’s a dark side to the Neruda story... Pablo Neruda’s death has long been suspected to be murder. His untimely demise coincided with Chile’s Pinochet coup and consequent dictatorship that led to numerous human rights violations. At least 200,000 people were killed, tortured, or exiled - many of them political opponents, academics, or artists. Pablo Neruda may have been one of the casualties. The circumstances are questionable but he definitively visited the doctor within 48 hours of his death and was given a shot. Some believe that shot consisted of poison. The official government record says that it was an injection to deal with cancer and that Neruda died of a heart attack. In 2013, a Chilean judged ordered Neruda’s remains to be exhumed and analyzed for an answer about his death. A panel of expert scientists studied his corpse but provided inconclusive results as to whether he died a natural or abnormal death.

Regardless of Neruda’s questionable death circumstances, there were thousands of state sponsored executions by the Pinochet government and military junta. Learn more about Chilean history and foreign involvement in the overthrow of Salvador Allende. And visit the Museum of Human Rights Violations in Santiago, Chile to learn more of this history. It is a somber, but important topic to understand.

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Read more of Pablo Neruda’s 20 Poemas de amor y una canción de desperdada (20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair) or 100 Sonnetos de Amor (100 Love Sonnets).

Additionally, I recently learned of an allegation of sexual violence against Pablo Neruda in the # metoo movement. Instead of reading Neruda - read Gabriela Mistral - another Chilean Icon who you should read anyways. Mistral also won the Nobel Prize for Literature and spent much of her life in public service, advocating for young women.

Interested in Chile? Learn more about travel in South America - food to eat, places to see, and what to read!

See more of Chile: The Andes, the pampas, Tierra del Fuego, the world's driest desert (Atacama), the ocean coasts, the cities, the forests, and more.

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