Pablo Neruda—Love Sonnet XXII
Love, how often I loved you without seeing—without remembering
not recognizing your glance, not knowing you, a gentian
in the wrong place, scorching in the hot noon,
but 1 loved only the smell of the wheat.
Or maybe 1 saw von, imagined you lifting a wineglass
in Angol. by the light of the summer’s moon:
or were you the waist of that guitar I strummed,
in the shadows, that rang like an impetuous sear
I loved you without knowing I did: 1 searched to remember you.
1 broke into houses to steal your likeness,
though I already knew what you were like. And suddenly.
when you were there with me I touched you, and my life
stopped: you stood before me, you took dominion like a queen:
like a wildfire in the forest, and the flame is your dominion.
Leo Bouwer—Leo Brouwer: El Decameron Negro
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