serai

I altered that Elijah icon I posted earlier today because I wasn't happy with the balance.

As promised, here's the poem that goes with it. The original title is Me Gustas Cuando Callas, and you can read it here. I did my translation of it in 1999, as part of Twenty Love Poems and a Desperate Song.

I Like You When You're Quiet
by Pablo Neruda

I like you when you're quiet because it's as if you were absent
and you hear me as from a distance, and my voice doesn't touch you.
It's as if your eyes had flown away
and as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.

Just as everything is full of my soul
you emerge from things, full of my soul.
Dream butterfly, you resemble my soul,
and you resemble the word melancholy.

I like you when you're quiet and you're as if far away.
And you seem to be complaining, cooing butterfly.
And you hear me as if from a distance, and my voice doesn't reach you.
Let me grow quiet alongside your silence.

Let me speak to you also with your silence
bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You're like the night, quiet and starstrewn.
Your silence is that of a star, just as distant and unadorned.

I like you when you're quiet because it's as if you were absent
Far away and sorrowing as if you had died.
Then just a word, just a smile is enough.
And I'm glad, so glad that it's not true.