Poem of the Week – Love Sonnet LXXXIX – Pablo Neruda – via Alison McGhee

When I die, I wish your hands upon my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass once more their cool touch over me:
to sense the softness that changed my fate.

I want you to live while I, asleep, await you.
I want your ears to go on hearing the wind.
I want you to smell the sea’s aroma we loved so together,
and to go on walking the sands we walked.

I want what I love to go on living.
And you, whom I loved and sung above all else,
for all that, flourish again, my flower,

to reach for everything my love demands of you,
so that my shadow is passed through your hair,
so that all can know the reason for my song.

(Translation: Terence Clarke)

For more information on Pablo Neruda, please click here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/pablo-neruda

A big thanks to Alison for curating these gems.

My blog: alisonmcghee.com/blog

My Facebook page: http://www.face

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