They say you're in true love
When you close your eyes
While kissing someone you love

Why yes,
I've kissed him many times
With my eyes closed
Whenever I sleep
And it is only
In my dreams

I know I started seeing things differently
Every time I look up the sky thinking
that I want to take every moment
sharing this beautiful view with you

— strolling

A paper left blank, unlaid
Hurt, numb to even lift a pen
To hear news of your passing
It was too much to bear

A moment of silence
then tears come undone
How could you leave too soon?
I thought you were healing...

Though these mourning came on too late
I'm sorry if it took too long, my mate
Your friend wasn't able to stand your state
Especially seeing your gentle face...

At least you're hurting no more

I went back again and these words laid
Please don't worry, darling
I know you're in good hands
These tears will still fall, but not too long
I know you want us okay, we will be
We will
But please be mindful you will be missed
So much
I'll remember you through our song
especially how you radiate us with your smile
You've done well, you can rest
Someday we will reunite again
At least you gave us comfort
that another angel is looking out for us

I just love and cherish him so much. Though, why is it so hard to convey to the world? Why and how is it so hard to understand?

And why does it have to be this way.

A simple girl loving a man far from her grasp. I thought love wasn't supposed to hard, nor it needs to be understood. You just feel it, and you just know in the depths of your heart.

**Yet why does this hurt so much?

honest boy
your words are written in the sky
whenever you love
it's cross the heart, hope to die

look at you darling
silly boy, bright mind
always speaking in rhythm and rhyme
everyone listens, you're one of a kind

always the muse,
sadness obscured under lights when you shine
(does it get lonely?)
i only hope your heart always soars, too,
the same way you make mine

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

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

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.


translated by W.S. Merwin