How, When, Where

When I was 12, I discovered Neruda’s “Sonnet XVII” in the dark, cool corner of the public library in my small hometown. I was sitting across from my mom, as she took down notes from some old novel she used to like as a teenager, and I remember reaching over and tapping her hand with my fingertips. She looked up and shushed me, even before I had opened my mouth to say a word. I nodded as if to tell her I remembered, yes, we were in a library and I had to whisper.

“Can you give me a page from your notebook? I want to write this one down and take it home”, I whispered.

“Which one? Are you sure you really want that one? You can only do 4 every time we come, otherwise you’ll end up copying the whole library and taking it home with you. Let me see…”, she whispered back, grabbing my book and reading the small sonnet I was pointing to.

She read slowly, with a soft sigh towards the end and gave me the book back. She quietly and methodically tore a page from her notebook and handed it to me.

“I always liked Neruda, too. That one is beautiful. Good choice.”

“Yes, I love the part where it says ‘I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where’. It seems silly, right Mom? You love from the heart. And you love because you want to…”, I giggled back with a certainty that she felt the same way, surely.

She gave me a strange look and said, “It means something else too, sometimes. But you’ll understand when you’re older. And no, I’m not explaining it now. You wouldn’t get it.”

I made a face, knowing she had anticipated my request for an explanation and went on to write down the poem down in my best penmanship. Something about poetry demands to be written exceeding your best efforts. Not sloppy. Rounded letters…no smudges. It’s art in words. It’s a story. It’s love. It’s pain. It’s history.

I took the page home, and folded it just once…neatly tucking it in a tin can where I had all my other poetry. It’s still there, 14 years later. Fourteen years changes a lot of things in a child’s mind. Time always gives experience. You’re no longer a novice, naïve when it comes to a skill, a pattern…life.

Those words mean a whole different world to me, now. The entire poem takes a new meaning.

The how: There is such thing as a love so powerful it cannot be contained in the confines of a simple heart. It would be like trying to hide the sun in a coin purse. It would burst at the seams, flooding the universe with its light. How does one explain that love to someone that’s never felt it? To people that have their own ideas of what love should and shouldn’t be. Textbook love. Predictable love. Rehearsed love. Pretend love. How can you love someone with such passion, blinded adoration and that life force feeling that runs from the tip of your toes up to the hairs on your head?

The when: Every nanosecond of the day. And then the days blur together and you lose count of how long you’ve loved this person. Because, now, all you know is that you go to sleep feeling loved and loving. If you dream, even if they’re bad, you don’t wake up feeling desolate and alone in the world. Someone makes it right by just listening to you and reassuring you that while the dream world may have fallen apart, the real world…which now feels like a perpetual fantasy…is very real. When? When you close your eyes while soaking up the sun and all you see is love. When you do day to day things, and now they seem to have a purpose. A reason. You’re no longer just existing…you matter. You belong. You are loved. You love. Always. Not a moment where that disappears. Even when it seems to be at its worst, that when it never fails, never waivers. The ‘when’ may be warped slightly…but there it is. Faithful. Strong. Always.

From where: A love you never knew existed, so it absolutely catches you unaware and leaves you wondering where it’s coming from? Where had it been hiding? Has it always been there? Waiting to be uncovered? How did you never notice it before? How can you even begin to understand where this love originates? Was it the first time you heard love say your name? The way it still stops your thoughts…stops you on your tracks to hear your name, so commonly used before, fall of love’s lips like the song of angels. Was it something bigger in which love pulled through for you? The way love looks at you…Oh the way you’re looked at. Where does is that look of unadulterated adoration birthed? Simply looking into their eyes and feeling like a blind man seeing for the first time. Loving from the darkest corners of your mind and body, unlike you’ve ever loved before. Where, indeed.

So yes, now it makes sense to love things in secret…since I know what he meant when he said “between the shadow and the soul”. A part of you that no one can touch. No one can take. Safe from the world and life and the passing of time. My treasure. My smile. Mine.

Sonnet XVII

~ Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

In secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

But carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

Thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

Risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

So I love you because I know no other way

Than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.