"Starry Night Over the Rhone" - Vincent Van Gogh

I can write verses

Tonight I can write the saddest verses.

To write, for example, “It is a starry night,
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.”

The night wind twirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she also loved me.

In nights like this I had her in my arms,
I kissed her endlessly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I also loved her.
How not to love her huge still eyes.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, much more immense without her.
And the verse falls on the soul like dew to the grass.

Who cares that my love could not keep her.
Starry, shattered night, she is not with me.

That is all. In the distance someone sings, In the distance
my soul is not content for having lost her.

My sight searches for her as if to go to her.
My heart searches too, and she is not with me.

The same night whitens the same trees.
We, once together, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s for sure, but how I love her.
My voice searched for the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her pale body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because in a night like this I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied for having lost her.

Thought this may be the last pain she causes me
and these the last verses write for her.

- Pablo Neruda -

Translated by moi…

in the mid 80’s as a result of reading a pathetic attempt by a published scholar, that in my opinion, had missed all the nuances…

I tried to locate the original this AM to give it a wiser and last look, but it was not to be.

Hope you enjoyed!