the pathway to your oceanic eyes.

XVII (I do not love you...)

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. Sonnet VIII

If your eyes were not the color of the moon, of a day full [here, interrupted by the baby waking -- continued about 26 hours later ] of a day full of clay, and work, and fire, if even held-in you did not move in agile grace like the air, if you were not an amber week, not the yellow moment when autumn climbs up through the vines; if you were not that bread the fragrant moon kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky, oh, my dearest, I could not love you so! But when I hold you I hold everything that is -- sand, time, the tree of the rain, everything is alive so that I can be alive: without moving I can see it all: in your life I see everything that lives. -pablo neruda