Welcome to May 2006 Poem(s) of the Month.
We return again this month to the marvelous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda for one of the two poems. Yes, Neruda penned March’s POM selection, and he is rapidly becoming one of my favorites. I find that he writes with such unrelenting power of conviction, especially in his poems about love, that I am continually returning to them in awe. In “I Do Not Love You” we see the difficulty of articulating through conventional means how much we can say we love someone. Neruda’s poem reflects a love so deep that it can only be talked about by not talking about it – something that lies deep beneath explanation, something that in the end allows the merging of two souls into one consciousness.
I’ve also included a bonus poem for your reading enjoyment 🙂
Hope you are doing well –
Stewart
Stewart Todd
(1971 – )
[Untitled]
We sat for the last time on that beach,
watching as the sun began to slip
slowly beneath the horizon.
As the last sliver of light surrendered
to the darkening water,
there were no romantic interludes,
no collapsing into each others arms
with emotions boiling over like lava rushing into the sea.
The brilliant embers danced wildly, temporarily,
up from the fire until one by one
they disappeared against the star-filled sky.
We huddled closer and closer,
as if, in a world so frigid and cold,
this fire was the only thing that could sustain us.
The warmth soaked our faces and hearts
until, on the turning away, we were buffeted
by the bitter night air.
We sat in the dark silence and listened to
“Still Crazy After All These Years” on the portable radio
when all we really wanted to say was “I love you.”
But we didn’t know the words, so
we fell slept on the cold beach,
and in the morning shook the sand from our shoes
and began our journey home.
