« I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember that on that day, at that hour,
I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But if each day, each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine. »(Pablo Neruda)

« I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,  
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:  
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,  
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries  
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,  
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose  
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,  
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,  
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,  
so close that your eyes close with my dreams. » (Pablo Neruda)

« I want to do with you
what spring does with cherry trees. » (Pablo Neruda)

« It was thirst, hunger, and you were the fruit.
It was mourning, ruins, and you were the miracle.
Woman, woman, how could you lock me up
in the cross of your arms, the earth of your soul. » (Pablo Neruda)

« He dies slowly
He who avoids passion
And its whirlwind of emotions
Those that restore light
in the eyes
And mend wounded hearts. » (Pablo Neruda)

« Your eyes don’t fit in your face,
Your eyes don’t fit on the ground.
There are countries, there are rivers
in your eyes,
my country is in your eyes,
I walk for them,
they give light to the world
where I walk. » (Pablo Neruda)

« My eyes went
behind a brunette
who was passing.
She was of black mother-of-pearl,
was purple grapes.
With her train of fire
she whipped my blood.
After all the girls
I always go like this.
A blonde passed
like a golden plant
swinging her charms.
And my mouth became
a wave that went
to discharge flashes
of blood on her chest.
After all the girls
I always go like this.
But towards you, without moving,
without seeing you, my distant one,
my blood, my kisses fly,
my brunette and clairette,
my big and my little one,
my vast and my petite one,
my pretty ugly girl,
made of all the silver
and made of all the gold,
made of all the wheat
and all the earth,
made of all the water
of the waves of the sea,
made for my two arms,
made for my kisses,
made, yes, for my heart. » (Pablo Neruda, The inconstant)

« I go, surfing my only wave,
lunar, solar, fiery and cold, sudden,
asleep in the throats of the fortunate islands white and soft like fresh hips.
My habit of kisses trembles in the humid night madly agitated with electric discharges, the intoxication of the rose in me unfolded.
Rising up the waters, in the outer waves, your twin body which submits in my arms like an endless fish stuck to my soul. « (Pablo Neruda)

« I’ll send you a kiss with the wind,
And I know you’ll hear it
You will turn around and, without
seeing me, I will be there.
In a kiss, you will know everything that I have not told you. » (Pablo Neruda)

« I was born to be born,
to hold back the step of all that approaches,
of everything that throbs in my chest,
like a new trembling heart » (Pablo Neruda)