“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
“Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because — because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
“Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness
And the infinite tenderness shattered you like a jar.”
“Suddenly I think I can make out your nails, Oblong, quick, nieces of a cherry: Then it’s your hair that passes by, and I think I see your image, a bonfire, burning in the water.”
“I searched, but no one else had your rhythms, your light, the shady day you brought from the forest;
Nobody had your tiny ears.”
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
“No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.”
“Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.”
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”
“From your hips down to your feet
I want to make a long journey.”
“When your hands leap
towards mine, love,
what do they bring me in flight?
Why did they stop
at my lips, so suddenly,
why do I know them,
as if once before,
I have touched them,
as if, before being,
they travelled
my forehead, my waist?”
“Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”
“I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.”
“My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.”
“Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.”
“In love you loosened yourself like sea water.”
“But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.”
“Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”
“Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.”
“Then love knew it was called love.
And when I lifted my eyes to your name,
suddenly your heart showed me my way.”
“In one kiss, you’ll know all I haven’t said.”
“Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.”
“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
