· Tonight I Can Write 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 that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.See more
Writer and psychologist. My health, a journey with two life shortening diseases 
6 replies on “More Neruda…”
Never tire of Neruda, he was a brilliant romantic with an amazing personal history, thank you for the poem!
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He is my favourite poet, so passionate, so profound. I never tire of reading him.
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He’s a stunning poet , I too love his work !
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This is a poem that manages to demonstrate the sort of zietgeist that the creative process has a habit of following. Although zietgeist is one way to describe it, I believe there are many other ways that have an equal capacity to express this process. I like the manner in which the poem touches on how the emotions conjured from what is arguably a lost lover led to his writing of a poem. Sometimes I wonder if those are the sort of emotions that have unconsciously gone into the creation of my own work. The feeling of a loss in romance can lead individuals to do unspeakable things. Thank goodness that creative outlets much like this one exist. They make it possible to process the emotional pain of falling in and out of love – a form of pain that continues to wound me to this day.
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I think we all relate to lost love. But that is not what makes Pablo Neruda great. It is the depths of his passion, the profundity of his written thoughts. It’s his capacity to use language to describe love, passion, and grief. His intellect is immense. This is what makes him so wonderful.
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The ability to express human emotions through the use of language is a gift – or a symbol of intellect – I believe only a few people possess. I concur with you completely.
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