Love Is So Short, Forgetting Is So Long

I, right now, am not in the business of forgetting. That was Mr. Neruda's job, some night in a far off time and space, or at least the job fit for the speaker of this poem. At the risk of becoming one of those dreary blogs I've talked about, I want to share this poem by Pablo Neruda. Someone I care about deeply gave me The Essential Neruda book for Christmas, and this poem is one of my favorites because it captures heartbreak so perfectly, as well as the stories we tell ourselves while in the midst of heartbreak. My friend Emilee (a fellow lover of poetry) read it to me in the car this summer on a three hour drive to 10 Mile, a friend's old growth sanctuary on the Oregon Coast. Above poppy is by Bran Symondson from a photo story called "The Best View of Heaven is From Hell" on Dazed Digital. Check it out. It's eerie, but beautifully done, and about opium addiction among the Afganistan police. Pablo's poppys remind me of my Grandma Anita: she, a committed botainist, knew their power and loved them as some of her favorite flowers. 

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I can write the saddest verses

I can write the saddest verses tonight.

Write, for example, "The night is full of stars,

       twinkling 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 beneath the infinite sky.

She love me, at times I loved her too.

How not to have loved her great still 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 onto my soul like dew onto grass.

What difference that my love could not keep her.

The night is full of starts, and she is not with me.

That's all. In the distance, someone sings. In the

       distance.

My soul is not at peace with having lost her.

As if to bring her closer, my gaze searches for her,

My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.

We, of then, now are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, it's true, but how much I loved her.

My voice searched for the wind that would touch her ear.

Another's. She will be another's. As before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,

my soul is not at peace with having lost her.

Though this may be the final sorrow she causes me,

and these the last verses I write for her.

-Pablo Neruda