I came across some poetry that I used to read over and over, and it's amazing the quality of feeling that it can evoke, hearing those words, listening to those emotions. I was blessed early on in life with some kind of gift of writing, yet I am always in awe at how basic lines can convey the profoundest of feelings, and I am always aspiring to reach that place where someone can say that about my writing. Which explains one thing, why I am so much of a letter writer, yet can't find a single person who wants to exchange letters. Dammit. If you're that person, let me know. (friend or not)
So I want to share with you one of my favorite poems, and it sort of fits where I am in my life at this point. I would recommend that you read it aloud, for the words bring a certain sound to them that can't be replaced if you read it just in your head. Go ahead, maybe if someone's listening, they'll think you are a literary genius.
From time to time, I hope to post a few of my favorite poems for your perusal, and hopefully inspire the poet in all of us.
Thanks,
Voodoo
Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines by Pablo Neruda
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 she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
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