Poem 20
Pablo Neruda
I can write the saddest verses tonight.
Write, for example: "The night is starry,
and the stars shiver, blue, in the distance."
The night wind spins in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest verses 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 too.
How could I not have loved her big, fixed eyes.
I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I don't have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew on grass.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
That is all. In the distance someone sings. In the distance
My soul is not content with having lost her.
As if to bring her closer, my gaze seeks her.
My heart seeks her, and she is not with me.
The same night that makes the same trees whiten.
We, those of then, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, it is true, but how much I loved her.
My voice sought the wind to touch her ear.
From another. It will be from another. As before my kisses.
Her voice, her clear body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, it is true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short, and oblivion is so long.
Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content with having lost her.
Even if this is the last pain she causes me,
and these are the last verses I write to her.
