FHUHS Spanish

Español 3: Sentimientos y pasiones

N° 10 de Veinte poemas de amor
(Hemos perdido aún…)

por Pablo Neruda

Hemos perdido aún este crepúsculo.
Nadie nos vio esta tarde con las manos unidas
mientras la noche azul caía sobre el mundo.

He visto desde mi ventana
la fiesta del poniente en los cerros lejanos.

A veces como una moneda
se encendía un pedazo de sol entre mis manos.

Yo te recordaba con el alma apretada
de esa tristeza que tú me conoces.

Entonces dónde estabas?‡
Entre qué gentes?
Diciendo qué palabras?
Por qué se me vendrá todo el amor de golpe
cuando me siento triste, y te siento lejana?

Cayó el libro que siempre se toma en el crepúsculo,
y como un perro herido rodó a mis pies mi capa.

Siempre, siempre te alejas en las tardes
hacia donde el crepúsculo corre borrando estatuas.

Vocabulario

Después de leer

1. Imagine the last time you sat peacefully watching a sunset. Have you ever watched one with someone you loved? How did you feel the next time you watched a sunset from the same place without that person?
2. Do you ever remember reaching for something you saw as a child which was impossible to touch? Like the sun? The moon?
3. What does it feel like to have your “soul pinched”? Have you ever longed for something so much as to feel physical pain?
4. My elderly father quite frequently falls asleep sitting next to the window with a book in his hand, which he subsequently drops to his feet. When I see this, I see such a deep peace. Have you ever witnessed someone reading who doses off in quiet peace? At the same time, the Spanish expression, estar de capa caída, suggests not a contented peace, but rather fallen spirits. One of the beauties of poetry is that the same line can generate multiple emotions.
5. In the last stanza, Neruda uses the tú form of alejarse. To whom is he refering? His love? The sun? Both?
6. What does it mean “to erase a statue”? Why do we erect statues? If we were to “erase” one, what meaning does that have for the history which was honored by the statue, and the present which ceased to care? If we use the alternative meaning of borrar, to clean, what would that mean?

‡ Notad que en la edición original de Veinte poemas de amor, Neruda no usaba ni el punto interrogativo inicial, ni el punto de exclamación inicial en sus poemas. La versión en el libro de texto los contiene.