To Sadness

–after Pablo Neruda

 

Sadness I need you

For many

I’ve loved

Are carried

In rain:

Each drop

Nameless

In the fields.

So I grieve

Among crows

The summer’s day

Mysterious

As thirst…

 

I need sometimes

To carry something intimate,

Something internal

Like the sparks in my blind eyes

Carry it far away

Under rain soaked trees.

& each time

You are there

Like a ribbon

For the innocent ones

To find.

 

I am stunned by your office

Which calls the poor

& promises the air—

Something in our hearts

Looks and looks for you.

 

Sadness

The doctor gave me some vision

& still I walk in the shadows—

Sadness

The day withdraws

To its local cemetery.

 

I wish, for the sake of argument

To love you

As if you were geometry.

You, who take your pleasure only in place, in all places…

 

–Stephen Kuusisto