Ah Neruda!

"In what language does rain fall over tormented cities?"

So asked Neruda. I love his poetry, and wish to goodness I had read enough to off-hand quote him. I wish I could read him in the original. I wish I could learn Spanish first so I could read him and Marquez in the original. And Russian to be able to read Tolstoy’s.

Neruda’s was the poetry of love, of passion.

"I like on the table, when we're speaking, the light of a bottle of intelligent wine."

"With which stars do they go on speaking,the rivers that never reach the sea?"

"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."

Such words, such beauty, you want to weep, weep the tears of joy, weep of the joy of being alive. Ah Neruda!