I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

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 don’t 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 it is your eyes that close.

~~Sonnet XVII
~~Pablo Neruda

 

From here I could probably walk into Kazakhstan. I sit among the evergreens and larch trees of the taiga. The bark is scaly to my touch, the rough-made stuff before books and paper and greeting cards. The air is clean. Sunbeams slant through the trees and the lake and sky are so blue. Ralph would merely have said, “Let’s go,” and grabbed hold of my hand. We would have packed a sandwich… taken a bag of apples… a jack knife and been off walking over the mountain to Kazakhstan… picked blueberries and wildflowers on the way… the creatures of the wild we had discovered in each other. Even though I’ve made all of my farewells long ago, Ralph’s voice comes out of nowhere, “Paula, I really love the world.” But, there will be no walk to Kazakhstan… not today… not ever.

I’ve always wondered if there would be another. Ralph wanted another for me should he have to go. He was so nice like that. He had talked about it with me from time to time. At the end of his suffering, he said in an unusually abrupt way, a person who didn’t want to leave… not ever… “Paula, I love you, I like you, Good-bye.” What else is there to say really… most good-byes are a vague business… the twisted truths of controlled emotions that never get the saying done. I guess he knew that… and I guess he knew that after him I could also want another on my own… I would need no one’s permission for that… it’s the kind of thing he liked about me… a straightforward kind of peasant logic. I love you. I like you. Good-bye.

There is an old Valentine in a box that’s packed away… the last Valentine. It says in present tense, “Paula, I want to go anywhere with you.” I have gone anywhere in present tense, but I have gone alone. I live this curious, small life of contemplation here and there… still searching for berries and the wild rose. I find much in wandering that I have longed for. I’ve found others, but not another… it is an irony of my life… it is a desire that causes suffering… it is a vein running through the rock that my life is built upon.

I thought I saw you
Climbing up the brown path
Through the larches in the taiga
Was it you?
Or was it another?

I looked again.
It was not you.
It was not another.
Just the empty brown path
Snaking through the larches.

The larch is the tree
That withstands the fire.
The stalwart one in the
Smoke of the forest
When all else is gone.
Reaching to the sun
Living out under the blue sky,
Listening for the waves
Lapping to the shore
Waiting for the wild, red peony
To rise up again
From the gray ash
On the forest floor.

I thought I saw you
Climbing up the brown path
Through the larches in the taiga
Was it you?
Or was it another?

I looked again.
It was not you.
It was not another.
Just the empty brown path
Snaking through the larches.

~~Path through the Larches

 The sun is setting. I walk down the path through the trees… veer off to pick a wild, red peony… put it in my pocket and, only then, am I on my way again.

I’ll turn toward the desert tomorrow and, in so doing, my heart aches for the language of uninterrupted poetry that, when all else fails, shares longing and celebrates the joy of remembrance. Perhaps it is my “another.” The thick forest pulls me into it further just as I am slowly making my way down the mountain to leave it. Night will fall soon and Mongolian music will pull me one more time to the past. I’ll sit out under the full moon and watch the stars come out until I can no longer make out the patterns of the constellations and gaze as long as I can before it is time to close my eyes and let the cricket’s song sing a lullaby of peace… of sleep.

Leaving you
I’ve left myself
Behind
Though the cup
Of tea is cold
The trace
Of my lips will
Keep it warm
When once again you
Come to the concept of
Separation
Whether our lips
Kiss again
Or not
Is left to you
You can pour
The tea out
And wash
The cup
But it will
Always be
The one
I drank from
My smell is
In the room
And my light
In the mirror
From which your
Image each morning
Inspects you
My heat is
Still there too
In each of your pores
A tiny sun

~~Leaving you
~~Galsan Tschinag