I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz by Pablo Neruda.

Post 565 - Pablo Neruda was born in Parral, Chile. He studied in Santiago in 1920s. From 1927 to 1945 he was the Chilean consul in Rangoon, in Java, and then in Barcelona. He joined the Communist Party after the Second World War. Between 1970 and 1973 he served in Allende’s Chilean Government as ambassador to Paris. He died shortly after the coup that ended the Allende Government. Love, like life, can't ever be fully defined, but Neruda captured it quite nicely in this poem.

Neruda once observed that: "Latin America is very fond of the word 'hope.” We like to be called the 'continent of hope.' Candidates for deputy, senator, president, call themselves 'candidates of hope.' This hope is really something like a promise of heaven, an IOU whose payment is always being put off. It is put off until the next legislative campaign, until next year, until the next century."

Reminds me of the US politicians of today.


I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz by Pablo Neruda


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.