English translation below.
“Poema 15” de Veinte Poemas de Amor
Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.
Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma,
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.
Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
Déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.
Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.
Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.
© Fundación Pablo Neruda.
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“Poem 15” from Twenty Love Poems
I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now,
you heard me from a distance, and my voice couldn't reach you.
It's as if your eyes had flown away from you, and as if
your mouth were closed because I leaned to kiss you.
Just as all living things are filled with my soul.
you emerge from all living things filled with the soul of me.
It's as if, a butterfly in dreams, you were my soul,
and as if you were the soul's word, melancholy.
I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you'd gone away now,
And you'd become the keening, the butterfly's insistence,
And you heard me from a distance and my voice didn't reach you.
It's then that what I want is to be quiet with your silence.
It's then that what I want is to speak to your silence
in a speech as clear as lamplight, as plain as a gold ring.
You are quiet like the night, and like the night you're starlit.
Your silences are star-like, they're a distant and a simple thing.
I like it when you're quiet. It's as if you weren't here now.
As if you were dead now, and sorrowful, and distant.
A word then is sufficient, or a smile, to make me happy,
Happy that it seems so certain that you're present.
Translated by Robert Hass from The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems City Lights, © 2004.
