Books and Love

I was talking with Matt on Skype a couple of weeks ago and he asked me what books I was reading.  I told him, I didn't read as much as any more, that my eyes make it hard to concentrate for more than an hour or so.  Maybe I don't have the attention span anymore, either.  Certainly books have receded in importance from our home.  When we were first married, I had a room (albeit a little room) that was filled with books: poetry and literature, philosophy and religion, history and everything in between. Dozen of tomato boxes of books were moved every time we moved.  But since we have been in this house, and even before - when I stopped working for Waldenbooks - books have slowly moved from bookshelves in the living room to bookshelves in a study in the basement to bookshelves in the storage room our basement has become.  And boxes and boxes of books have gone . . . to church libraries, to Goodwill, to the dump.  (Videos and games, on the other hand, grow and grow) Maybe it is not having time enough to devote to a book.  Matt mentioned going out to Aran with a pile of books for the weekend and doing nothing but read.  What a luxury that would be . . .  to have nothing to do but loaf and read.  When would I read my email? Post to my blog? Update my Facebook profile? Upload to Picassa? oh . . . . wait.

To be honest, I still read books. (I just finished a selection of stories about the Knights Templar edited by Katherine Kurtz.)  And I have a stack next to my bed that I have bought at library sales and that same Goodwill store I send so many to.  (I actually often have the experience of seeing a book I used to own in Goodwill and wondering if I donated it. . . or sold it sometime and it had come back to me.) I still read at least 4  times the average number of books read by Americans.  I just don't spend time reading the 'Great Books'.  If I don't get engaged in a book in 100 pages, I put it aside.  If I don't understand it, I leave it.  Life really is too short , and the number of books I have left to be able to read is finite.  If I read now, it is only for pleasure, not education.

I bought probably three new books this past year (sorry, Matt!) and this poem is from one of them, Intimacies, Poems of Love by Pablo Neruda.  I bought it for Dawn for Christmas because when I met her she had mentioned Neruda as a poet she liked and I thought I was going to be a poet at the time  . . . . well. . . . and Neruda writes so well about love.  Please find and read the poem in Spanish as well as it is the most beautiful of languages.  When I was in High School and college, I studied three languages: Latin, Spanish and German.  Of the three, the only one I can still understand is Spanish and that I learned 35 years ago. Next time, I promise some poetry of my own . . . though not as good as this at all.

Love by Pablo Neruda

So many days, oh so many days

seeing you so tangible and so close,

how do I pay, with what do I pay?

The bloodthirsty spring

has awakened in the woods.

The foxes start from their earths,

the serpents drink the dew,

and I go with you in the leaves

between the pines and the silence,

asking myself how and when

I will have to pay for my luck.

Of everything I have seen,

it's you I want to go on seeing;

of everything I've touched,

it's your flesh I want to go on touching.

I love your orange laughter.

I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.

What am I to do, love, loved one?

I don't know how others love

or how people loved in the past.

I live, watching you, loving you.

Being in love is my nature.

You please me more each afternoon.

Where is she? I keep asking

if your eyes disappear.

How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt.

I feel poor, foolish and sad,

and you arrive and you are lightening

glancing off the peach trees.

That's why I love you and yet not why.

there are so many reasons, and yet so few,

for love has to be so,

involving and general,

particular and terrifying,

joyful and grieving,

flowering like the stars,

and measureless as a kiss.

That's why I love you and yet not why.

There are so many reasons, and yet so few,

for love has to be so,

involving and general,

particular and terrifying,

joyful and grieving,

flowering like the stars,

And measureless as a kiss.

Por eso te amo y no por eso,

por tantas cosa y tan pocas,

y asi debe ser el amor

entrecerrado y general,

particular y pavoroso,

embanderado y enlutado

florindo como las estrellas

y sin medida como un beso.

There is so much of Neruda's poety on the Internet, including some great videos.  Here is one of my favorites.