Tonight I Can Write is a poem written by Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, who goes by the Pen Name Pablo Neruda. He was born in the yar 1904 and died in the year 1973 due to Lieukemia. 2 of his most popular works have been published in 1924 and are namely, A Song of Dispair and Twenty Love Poems. Let’s set aside the information about the author and proceed to the poem, Tonight I Can Write.
Tonight I Can Write
Tonight, I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example. The night is starry
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight, I can write the saddest lines,
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me, too.
Through nights like this one, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes, I loved her too.
how could one not love her great still eyes?
Tonight, I can write the saddest lines,
To think that I do not have her, too feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night still more immense without her,
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
this is all. In the distance, someone is singing.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer
My heart looks fort her, and she is not with me.
The same night, whitening the same trees,
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her,
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s. She will be another’s, as she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short; forgetting is long.
Because through nights like this one, I held her in my arms
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
And these be the last verses that I write for her.
-Trans W.S Merwin
Is this a poem? parang hindi naman eh? I don’t see the rhymes.
@Princess – poems need not rhyme all the time! peoms come in different forms – you got the sonnet, the haiku, etc… am i right kev? 😀
pablo neruda is one of my favorite poets… his poems on love are bittersweet and passionate!
wow~i love the poem..pinoy are really talented!
yes, it is a poem indeed. but it was not written by a filipino. Pablo Neruda is a Chilean poet.. 😀
it’s a beautiful poem..I’ve known about it since I was in High School….
poem without rhymes are called free-verse if im not mistaken..
parang hindi nmn talaga ata yan poem….-_-
Not all poems need to rhyme.
Oh! I remember taking up this poem last semester in World Literature. It remains one of my most favorite poems. 😀
wow. This is a filipino. Awesome.
oh. i thought this was a filipino poet.
"Love is the greatest defense mechanism."
I don't get what people are thinking,
poems are nothing without meaning,
Love, if you want to express it gently,
Show the road of darkness, through light of eternity…