XVII

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 dark things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

i love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that rose
from the earth lives in my body in darkness.

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.

**********

this was my christmas surprise.

aldo's not exactly a huge fan of pablo neruda nor poetry but he went out and bought me that book before he went home to manila last november - just because i kept on making him kulit to put a neruda poem on our save-the-date card.

it would have been a perfect mushy surprise, had i not opened his suitcase. hehehe.

i've always loved sonnet xvii and was quite shocked when aldo found it in the book, and later on wrote: "to my wife, xvii p. 513" on the front page.

it's going to be part of our wedding invitation... watch out for it in 2 weeks!