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A Child Who Does Not Play Is Not A Child, But The Man Who Doesn't Play Has Lost Forever The Child Who Lived In Him And Who He Will Miss Terribly.
-Pablo Neruda
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A Child Who Does

Pablo Neruda
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A Child Who Does Not Play Is Not A Child, But The Man Who Doesn't Play Has Lost Forever The Child Who Lived In Him And Who He Will Miss Terribly.

Understanding the Quote: "a child who does not play is not a child, but the..."

This quote by Pablo Neruda reflects deeply on the theme of children. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Children, Men, Play, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Pablo Neruda interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda is celebrated for insightful thoughts on children and men. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Children
Men
Play
More From Pablo Neruda
Each In The Most Hidden Sack Kept The Lost Jewels Of Memory, Intense Love, Secret Nights And Permanent Kisses, The Fragment Of Public Or Private Happiness. A Few, The Wolves, Collected Thighs, Other Men Loved The Dawn Scratching Mountain Ranges Or Ice Floes, Locomotives, Numbers. For Me Happiness Was To Share Singing, Praising, Cursing, Crying With A Thousand Eyes. I Ask Forgiveness For My Bad Ways: My Life Had No Use On Earth.
Memories
Eye
Kissing
I Love You Between Shadow And Soul. I Love You As The Plant That Hasn't Bloomed Yet, And Carries Hidden Within Itself The Light Of Flowers. I Love You Without Knowing How, Or When, Or From Where. Because Of You, The Dense Fragrance That Rises From The Earth Lives In My Body, Rioting With Hunger For The Eternity Of Our Victorious Kisses.
Flower
Love You
Kissing
I Should Like To Sleep Like A Cat, With All The Fur Of Time, With A Tongue Rough As Flint, With The Dry Sex Of Fire; And After Speaking To No One, Stretch Myself Over The World, Over Roofs And Landscapes, With A Passionate Desire To Hunt The Rats In My Dreams.
Love
Dream
Sex
And Our Problems Will Crumble Apart, The Soul / Blow Through Like A Wind, And Here Where We Live Will All Be Clean Again, With Fresh Bread On The Table.
Blow
Wind
Soul
I Walked Around As You Do, Investigating The Endless Star, And In My Net, During The Night, I Woke Up Naked, The Only Thing Caught, A Fish Trapped Inside The Wind.
Stars
Night
Wind
Love Is A War Of Lightning, And Two Bodies Ruined By A Single Sweetness. Kiss By Kiss I Cover Your Tiny Infinity, Your Margins, Your Rivers, Your Diminutive Villages, And A Genital Fire, Transformed By Delight, Slips Through The Narrow Channels Of Blood To Precipitate A Nocturnal Carnation, To Be, And Be Nothing But Light In The Dark.
War
Dark
Kissing
I Say Love, And The World Populates Itself With Doves.
Love
World
Dove
In Love, You Have Loosened Yourself Like Seawater
Love You
I Have Named You Queen. There Are Taller Than You, Taller. There Are Purer Than You, Purer. There Are Lovelier Than You, Lovelier. But You Are The Queen. When You Go Through The Streets No One Recognizes You. No One Sees Your Crystal Crown, No One Looks At The Carpet Of Red Gold That You Tread As You Pass, The Nonexistent Carpet. And When You Appear All The Rivers Sound In My Body, Bells Shake The Sky, And A Hymn Fills The World. Only You And I, Only You And I, My Love, Listen To It.
Queens
Sky
Hymns
In One Kiss, You'll Know All I Haven't Said.
Kissing
Said
Havens
Poetry Is An Act Of Peace.
Poetry
Poetry Is
Over Your Breasts Of Motionless Current, Over Your Legs Of Firmness And Water, Over The Permanence And The Pride Of Your Naked Hair I Want To Be, My Love, Now That The Tears Are Thrown Into The Raucous Baskets Where They Accumulate, I Want To Be, My Love, Alone With A Syllable Of Mangled Silver, Alone With A Tip Of Your Breast Of Snow.
Pride
Hair
Snow
Oh, May Your Silhouette Never Dissolve On The Beach; May Your Eyelids Never Flutter Into The Empty Distance. Don't Leave Me For A Second, My Dearest.
Famous Love
Beach
Distance
A Book, A Book Full Of Human Touches, Of Shirts, A Book Without Loneliness, With Men And Tools, A Book Is Victory.
Loneliness
Book
Men
In You Is The Illusion Of Each Day. You Arrive Like The Dew To The Cupped Flowers. You Undermine The Horizon With Your Absence. Eternally In Flight Like The Wave.
Flower
Dew
Horizon
Everything Is So Alive, That I Can Be Alive. Without Moving I Can See It All. In Your Life I See Everything That Lives.
Moving
Alive
I Can
Hay Algo Más Tonto En La Vida Que Llamarse Pablo Neruda? (is There Anything More Insane In This Life Than Being Called Pablo Neruda?)
Insane
Hay
This Life
O Happy Childhood! Blessed Youth! But Once We Know Thy Potent Power; But Once We Live All Careless Free; No Cross To Mar Our Love-lit Bower.
Blessed
Childhood
Mars
And What Importance Do I Have In The Courtroom Of Oblivion?
Oblivion
Importance
Courtroom
I Want To Do With You What The Spring Does With The Cherry Trees.
Spring
Tree
Doe
I Do Not Love You-except Because I Love You; I Go From Loving To Not Loving You, From Waiting To Not Waiting For You My Heart Moves From The Cold Into The Fire.
Girlfriend
Sweet Love
Moving
I Have Named You Queen. There Are Taller Than You, Taller. There Are Purer Than You, Purer. There Are Lovelier Than You, Lovelier. But You Are The Queen.
Queens
Como Se Reparten El Sol En El Naranjo Las Naranjas? How Do The Oranges Divide Up Sunlight In The Orange Tree?
Orange Trees
Sunlight
Divides
I Like On The Table, When We're Speaking, The Light Of A Bottle Of Intelligent Wine.
Wine
Intelligent
Light
Someone Will Ask Later, Sometimes Searching For A Name, His Own Or Someone's Else's Why I Neglected His Sadness Or His Love... But I Didn't Have Enough Time Or Ink For Everyone. Or Maybe It Was The Strain Of The City, Of Time The Cold Heart Of The Clocks.
Time
Heart
Sadness
My Feet Will Want To Walk To Where You Are Sleeping But I Shall Go On Living.
Broken Heart
Sleep
Feet
Our Love Was Born Outside The Walls, In The Wind, In The Night, In The Earth, And That's Why The Clay And The Flower, The Mud And The Roots Know Your Name.
Wall
Flower
Night
When I Got The Chance I Asked Them A Slew Of Questions. They Offered To Burn Me; It Was The Only Thing They Knew.
Chance
When I Sleep Every Night, What Am I Called Or Not Called? And When I Wake, Who Am I If I Was Not I While I Slept?
Sleep
Night
Every Night
Donde Termina El Arco Iris, En Tu Alma O En El Horizonte? Where Does The Rainbow End, In Your Soul Or On The Horizon?
Rainbow
Soul
Irises
What Does Autumn Go On Paying For With So Much Yellow Money?
Autumn
Yellow
Doe
Love! Love Until The Night Collapses!
Love
Sweet Love
Night
I Stalk Certain Words... I Catch Them In Mid-flight, As They Buzz Past, I Trap Them, Clean Them, Peel Them, I Set Myself In Front Of The Dish, They Have A Crystalline Texture To Me, Vibrant, Ivory, Vegetable, Oily, Like Fruit, Like Algae, Like Agates, Like Olives... I Stir Them, I Shake Them, I Drink Them, I Gulp Them Down, I Mash Them, I Garnish Them... I Leave Them In My Poem Like Stalactites, Like Slivers Of Polished Wood, Like Coals, Like Pickings From A Shipwreck, Gifts From The Waves... Everything Exists In The Word.
Past
Vegetables
Ivory
Raw Hatred Took Its Time Making An Outpost Of Its Rage And Prepared For Me A Savage Crown With Rusty, Bloodstained Spikes. It Wasn't Pride That Made Me Keep My Heart At A Distance From Such Terror, Nor Did I Waste On Revenge Or The Pursuit Of Power The Forces That Came From My Selfish Griefs Or My Accumulated Joys. It Was Something Else-my Helplessness.
Revenge
Selfish
Distance
Conspirators In Pajamas Who Exchange Deep Kisses For Passwords.
Kissing
Pajamas
Passwords
Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines...though This Be The Last Pain That She Makes Me Suffer And These The Last Verses That I Write For Her.
Pain
Writing
Suffering
It Was My Destiny To Love And Say Goodbye.
Goodbye
Saying Goodbye
Destiny
I Stroll Along Serenely, With My Eyes, My Shoes, My Rage, Forgetting Everything.
Eye
Journey
Shoes
Shyness Is A Condition Foreign To The Heart - A Category, A Dimension Which Leads To Loneliness.
Loneliness
Heart
Dimensions
Someday, Somewhere - Anywhere, Unfailingly, You'll Find Yourself, And That, And Only That, Can Be The Happiest Or Bitterest Hour Of Your Life.
Love
Finding Yourself
Someday
Green Was The Silence, Wet Was The Light, The Month Of June Trembled Like A Butterfly.
Summer
Butterfly
June
With Which Stars Do They Go On Speaking,the Rivers That Never Reach The Sea?
Stars
Philosophical
Sea
I Want To See The Thirst Inside The Syllables I Want To Touch The Fire In The Sound: I Want To Feel The Darkness Of The Cry. I Want Words As Rough As Virgin Rocks.” - Verb.
Fire
Rocks
Darkness
You & I, Love, Together We Ratify The Silence, While The Sea Destroys Its Perpetual Statues, Collapses Its Towers Of Wild Speed And Whiteness: Because In The Weavings Of Those Invisible Fabrics, Galloping Water, Incessant Sand, We Make The Only Permanent Tenderness.
Famous Love
Sea
Water
And The Verse Falls To The Soul Like Dew To The Pasture.
Fall
Soul
Dew
Well, Now If Little By Little You Stop Loving Me I Shall Stop Loving You Little By Little If Suddenly You Forget Me Do Not Look For Me For I Shall Already Have Forgotten You If You Think It Long And Mad The Wind Of Banners That Passes Through My Life And You Decide To Leave Me At The Shore Of The Heart Where I Have Roots Remember That On That Day, At That Hour, I Shall Lift My Arms And My Roots Will Set Off To Seek Another Land
Love
Heart
Thinking
I Love All Things, Not Because They Are Passionate Or Sweet-smelling But Because, I Don't Know, Because This Ocean Is Yours, And Mine: These Buttons And Wheels And Little Forgotten Treasures, Fans Upon Whose Feathers Love Has Scattered Its Blossoms, Glasses, Knives And Scissors -- All Bear The Trace Of Someone's Fingers On Their Handle Or Surface, The Trace Of A Distant Hand Lost In The Depths Of Forgetfulness.
Sweet
Ocean
Glasses
Am I Allowed To Ask My Book / Whether It's True I Wrote It?
Book
Asks
Once More I Am The Silent One Who Came Out Of The Distance Wrapped In Cold Rain And Bells: I Owe To Earth's Pure Death The Will To Sprout.
Distance
Rain
Winter
Take It All Back. Life Is Boring, Except For Flowers, Sunshine, Your Perfect Legs. A Glass Of Cold Water When You Are Really Thirsty. The Way Bodies Fit Together. Fresh And Young And Sweet. Coffee In The Morning. These Are Just Moments. I Struggle With The In-betweens. I Just Want To Never Stop Loving Like There Is Nothing Else To Do, Because What Else Is There To Do?
Sweet
Morning
Coffee
Love, What A Long Way, To Arrive At A Kiss.
Kissing
Long
Way
Laughter Is The Language Of The Soul.
Happiness
Laughter
Laughing
If Suddenly You Do Not Exist, If Suddenly You Are Not Living, I Shall Go On Living. I Do Not Dare, I Do Not Dare To Write It, If You Die. I Shall Go On Living.
Writing
Goes On
Dare
I Grew Up In This Town, My Poetry Was Born Between The Hill And The River, It Took Its Voice From The Rain, And Like The Timber, It Steeped Itself In The Forests.
Rain
Voice
Rivers
Like Them You Are Tall And Taciturn, And You Are Sad, All At Once, Like A Voyage.
Voyages
Tall
Taciturn
Fue Adondo A Mi Me Perdieron Quw Logre Por Fin Encontrarme? Was It Where They Lost Me That I Finally Found Myself?
Lost
Fins
Found
But I Love Your Feet Only Because They Walked Upon The Earth And Upon The Wind And Upon The Waters, Until They Found Me.
Love
Wind
Feet
Love Is Not About Property, Diamonds And Gifts. It Is About Sharing Your Very Self With The World Around You.
Love Is
Self
World
How Much Does A Man Live, After All?/ Does He Live A Thousand Days, Or One Only? For A Week, Or For Several Centuries?/ How Long Does A Man Spend Dying?/ What Does It Mean To Say 'for Ever'?
Mean
Men
Long
Only Do Not Forget, If I Wake Up Crying It's Only Because In My Dream I'm A Lost Child Hunting Through The Leaves Of The Night For Your Hands.
Dream
Children
Night
To Harden The Earth The Rocks Took Charge: Instantly They Grew Wings: The Rocks That Soared: The Survivors Flew Up The Lightning Bolt, Screamed In The Night, A Watermark, A Violet Sword, A Meteor. The Succulent Sky Had Not Only Clouds, Not Only Space Smelling Of Oxygen, But An Earthly Stone Flashing Here And There Changed Into A Dove, Changed Into A Bell, Into Immensity, Into A Piercing Wind: Into A Phosphorescent Arrow, Into Salt Of The Sky.
Night
Clouds
Rocks
I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair. Silent And Starving, I Prowl Through The Streets. Bread Does Not Nourish Me, Dawn Disrupts Me, All Day I Hunt For The Liquid Measure Of Your Steps.
Hair
Voice
Dawn
All Paths Lead To The Same Goal: To Convey To Others What We Are.
Integrity
Character
Angel
As Slippery As Smooth Grapes, Words Exploding In The Light Like Dormant Seeds Waiting In The Vaults Of Vocabulary, Alive Again, And Giving Life: Once Again The Heart Distills Them.
Heart
Vocabulary
Light
Your Wide Eyes Are The Only Light I Know From Extinguished Constellations.
Love
Eye
Light
Your House Sounds Like A Train At Midday, The Wasps Buzz, The Saucepans Sing, The Waterfall Enumerates The Deeds Of The Dew . . .
House
Sound
Dew
At Night I Dream That You And I Are Two Plants That Grew Together, Roots Entwined, And That You Know The Earth And The Rain Like My Mouth, Since We Are Made Of Earth And Rain.
Dream
Rain
Night
Why Do Trees Conceal The Splendor Of Their Roots?
Roots
Tree
Splendor
I Hunger For Your Sleek Laugh And Your Hands The Color Of A Furious Harvest. I Want To Eat The Sunbeams Flaring In Your Beauty.
Hands
Color
Laughing
There Is No Insurmountable Solitude.
Solitude
Insurmountable
I Stood On The Balcony Dark With Mourning... Hoping The Earth Would Spread Its Wings In My Uninhabited Love.
Dark
Winter
Loss
Wakening From The Dreaming Forest There, The Hazel-sprig Sang Under My Tongue, Its Drifting Fragrance Climbed Up Through My Conscious Mind As If Suddenly The Roots I Had Left Behind Cried Out To Me, The Land I Had Lost With My Childhood - And I Stopped, Wounded By The Wandering Scent.
Dream
Land
Roots
Look Around—there's Only One Thing Of Danger For You Here—poetry.
Looks
Danger
One Thing
I Have Forgotten Your Love, Yet I Seem To Glimpse You In Every Window.
Glimpse
Forgotten
Window
He Who Does Not Travel, Who Does Not Read, Who Does Not Listen To Music, Who Does Not Find Grace In Himself, She Who Does Not Find Grace In Herself, Dies Slowly.
Grace
Doe
Listening To Music
I Spin On The Circle Of Wave Upon Wave Of The Sea.
Sea
Circles
Water
We The Mortals Touch The Metals, The Wind, The Ocean Shores, The Stones, Knowing They Will Go On, Inert Or Burning, And I Was Discovering, Naming All The These Things: It Was My Destiny To Love And Say Goodbye.
Goodbye
Ocean
Destiny
So The Freshness Lives On In A Lemon, In The Sweet-smelling House Of The Rind, The Proportions, Arcane And Acerb.
Sweet
House
Proportion
Oh Love, Rose Made Wet By Mermaids And Foams, Fire That Dances And Climbs Up The Invisible Stairs And Awakens The Blood In The Tunnel Of Sleeplessness.
Love
Fire
Tunnels
If Nothing Saves Us From Death, At Least Love Should Save Us From Life
Should
Ifs
I Want To Do For You What The Spring Does For The Cherry Trees
Spring
Tree
Doe
Love Is Brief: Forgetting Lasts So Long.
Love Is
Long
Lasts
Love Is Short, But Forgetting Is Long.
Lost Love
Love Is
Long
The Morning Is Full Of Storm In The Heart Of Summer. The Clouds Travel Like White Handkerchiefs Of Goodbye, The Wind, Travelling, Waving Them In Its Hands. The Numberless Heart Of The Wind Beating Above Our Loving Silence. Orchestral And Divine, Resounding Among The Trees Like A Language Full Of Wars And Songs.
Summer
Goodbye
Song
Between Lips And Lips There Are Cities Of Great Ash And Moist Summit, Drops Of When And How, Vague Comings And Goings: Between Lips And Lips As Along A Shore Of Sand And Glass The Wind Passes.
Glasses
Wind
Cities
And That's Why I Have To Go Back To So Many Places There To Find Myself And Constantly Examine Myself With No Witness But The Moon And Then Whistle With Joy, Ambling Over Rocks And Clods Of Earth, With No Task But To Live, With No Family But The Road.
Love
Moon
Rocks
Give Me, For My Life, All Lives, Give Me All The Pain Of Everyone, I'm Going To Turn It Into Hope. Give Me All The Joys, Even The Most Secret, Because Otherwise How Will These Things Be Known? I Have To Tell Them, Give Me The Labors Of Everyday, For That's What I Sing.
Pain
Giving
Joy
The Ardent Hymn That Unites Peoples.
Hymns
Design
Typography
Eating Alone Is A Disappointment. But Not Eating Matter More, Is Hollow And Green, Has Thorns Like A Chain Of Fish Hooks, Trailing From The Heart, Clawing At Your Insides. Hunger Feels Like Pincers, Like The Bite Of Crabs; It Burns, Burns, And Has No Fur. Let Us Sit Down Soon To Eat With All Those Who Haven't Eaten; Let Us Spread Great Tablecloths, Put Salt In Lakes Of The World, Set Up Planetary Bakeries, Tables With Strawberries In Snow, And A Plate Like The Moon Itself From Which We Can All Eat. For Now I Ask No More Than The Justice Of Eating.
Disappointment
Heart
Moon
We Open The Halves Of A Miracle, And A Clotting Of Acids Brims Into The Starry Divisions: Creation's Original Juices, Irreducible, Changeless, Alive: So The Freshness Lives On
Miracle
Division
Juice
The Books That Help You Most Are Those Which Make You Think That Most. The Hardest Way Of Learning Is That Of Easy Reading; But A Great Book That Comes From A Great Thinker Is A Ship Of Thought, Deep Freighted With Truth And Beauty.
Inspirational
Beauty
Book
Give Me Your Hand Out Of The Depths Sown By Your Sorrows.
Hands
Giving
Sorrow
I Love You As Certain Dark Things Are To Be Loved, In Secret, Between The Shadow And The Soul.
Love
Pregnancy
I Hate You
In The Distance Someone Is Singing.
Distance
Singing
Bitter Love, A Violet With It's Crown Of Thorns In A Thicet Of Spiky Passions, Spear Of Sorrow, Corolla Of Rage: How Did You Come To Conquer My Soul? What Brought You?
Passion
Soul
Sorrow
I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair.
Sexy
Hair
Voice
Sometimes I Get Up At Dawn, And Even My Soul Is Wet.
Soul
Dawn
Sometimes
Sonnet Xxv Before I Loved You, Love, Nothing Was My Own: I Wavered Through The Streets, Among Objects: Nothing Mattered Or Had A Name: The World Was Made Of Air, Which Waited. I Knew Rooms Full Of Ashes, Tunnels Where The Moon Lived, Rough Warehouses That Growled 'get Lost', Questions That Insisted In The Sand. Everything Was Empty, Dead, Mute, Fallen Abandoned, And Decayed: Inconceivably Alien, It All Belonged To Someone Else - To No One: Till Your Beauty And Your Poverty Filled The Autumn Plentiful With Gifts.
Autumn
Moon
Tunnels
I Ask Permission To Be Like Everybody Else,like The Rest Of The World And What's More, Like Anybody Else:i Beg You, With All My Heart,if We Are Talking About Me, Since We Are Talking About Me,please Resist Blasting The Trumpet During My Visitand Resign Yourselves To My Quiet Absence.
Heart
Talking
World
So I Wait For You Like A Lonely House Till You Will See Me Again And Live In Me. Till Then My Windows Ache.
Love
Lonely
Waiting
Political Poetry Is More Profoundly Emotional Than Any Other-at Least As Much As Love Poetry-and Cannot Be Forced Because Then It Becomes Vulgar And Unacceptable. It Is Necessary First To Pan Though All Other Poetry In Order To Become A Political Poet.
Emotional
Order
Political
But From Each Crime Are Born Bullets That Will One Day Seek Out In You Where The Heart Lies.
Lying
Heart
One Day
I Don't Know Who It Is Who Lives Or Dies, Who Rests Or Wakes, But It Is Your Heart That Distributes All The Graces Of The Daybreak In My Breast.
Heart
Grace
Breasts
Hour Of Nostalgia, Hour Of Happiness, Hour Of Solitude.
Solitude
Nostalgia
Hours
You Can Crush The Flowers, But You Can't Stop The Spring.
Love
Crush
Spring
To Love Is To Tilt With The Lightning, Two Bodies Routed By A Single Honey's Sweet.
Sweet
Love Is
Two
And I, A Materialist Who Does Not Believe In The Starry Heaven Promised To A Human Being, For This Dog And For Every Dog I Believe In Heaven, Yes, I Believe In A Heaven That I Will Never Enter, But He Waits For Me Wagging His Big Fan Of A Tail So I, Soon To Arrive, Will Feel Welcomed.
Dog
Believe
Afterlife
Oh To Follow The Road That Leads Away From Everything, Without Anguish, Death, Winter Waiting Along It With Their Eyes Open Through The Dew.
Eye
Winter
Waiting
The Bare Earth, Plantless, Waterless, Is An Immense Puzzle. In The Forests Or Beside Rivers Everything Speaks To Humans. The Desert Does Not Speak. I Could Not Comprehend Its Tongue; Its Silence...
Music
Rain
Rivers
Let Us Look For Secret Things Somewhere In The World On The Blue Shore Of Silence Or Where The Storm Has Passed Rampaging Like A Train. There The Faint Signs Are Left, Coins Of Time And Water, Debris ,celestial Ash And The Irreplaceable Rapture Of Sharing In The Labour Of Soitude In The Sand.
Blue
Water
Silence
And Here Am I, Budding Among The Ruins With Only Sorrow To Bite On, As If Weeping Were A Seed And I The Earth's Only Furrow.
Grieving
Life And Death
Sorrow
We Must Dream Our Way.
Dream
Way
I Need The Sea Because It Teaches Me
Sea
Needs
Teach
Under Your Skin The Moon Is Alive.
Moon
Skins
Alive
For Now I Ask No More Than The Justice Of Eating.
Justice
Bakeries
Poverty
In Your Eyes Of Mourning The Land Of Dreams Begins.
Dream
Eye
Land
You Are Like Nobody Since I Love You.
Love
Romantic
Anam Cara
In What Language Does Rain Fall Over Tormented Cities?
Life
Rain
Fall
Sufre Mas El Que Espera Siempre Que Aquel Que Nunca Espero A Nadie? Does He Who Is Always Waiting Suffer More Than He Who’s Never Waited For Anyone?
Waiting
Suffering
Doe
And What Has Become Of It, Where Is That Onetime Love? Now It Is The Grave Of A Bird, A Drop Of Black Quartz, A Chunk Of Wood Eroded By The Rain.
Broken Heart
Rain
Bird
You Can Say Anything You Want, Yessir, But It's The Words That Sing, They Soar And Descend...i Bow To Them...i Love Them, I Cling To Them, I Run Them Down, I Bite Into Them, I Melt Them Down...i Love Words So Much...the Unexpected Ones...the Ones I Wait For Greedily Or Stalk Until, Suddenly, They Drop.
Running
Waiting
Say Anything
From Scarlet To Powdered Gold, To Blazing Yellow, To The Rare Ashen Emerald, To The Orange And Black Velvet Of Your Shimmering Corselet, Out To The Tip That Like An Amber Thorn Begins You, Small, Superlative Being, You Are A Miracle, And You Blaze
Beauty
Yellow
Orange
Only A Burning Patience Will Lead To The Attainment Of A Splendid Happiness.
Patience
Burning
Splendid
Hands Make The World Each Day.
Hands
Each Day
World
And It Follows That I Am, Because You Are: It Follows From 'you Are', That I Am, And We: And, Because Of Love, You Will, I Will, We Will, Come To Be.
Love You
We Are Dust And To Dust Return. In The End We're Neither Air, Nor Fire, Nor Water, Just Dirt, Neither More Nor Less, Just Dirt, And Maybe Some Yellow Flowers.
Flower
Fire
Air
My Soul Is An Empty Carousel At Sunset.
Sunset
Soul
Empty
Who Hasn't Sharpened The Edge Of His Soul? When, Just As Our Eyes Are Opened, We See Hate, And Just After Learning To Walk, We Are Tripped, And Just For Wanting To Love, We Are Hated, And For No More Than Touching, We Are Hurt, Which Of Us Hasn't Started To Arm Himself, To Make Himself Sharp, Somehow, Like A Knife, To Pay Back The Hurt?
Hurt
Hate
Eye
But If Each Day, Each Hour, You Feel That You Are Destined For Me With Implacable Sweetness, If Each Day A Flower Climbs Up To Your Lips To Seek Me, Ah My Love, Ah My Own, In Me All That Fire Is Repeated, In Me Nothing Is Extinguished Or Forgotten, My Love Feeds On Your Love, Beloved, And As Long As You Live It Will Be In Your Arms Without Leaving Mine.
Famous Love
Flower
Love Is
I Can Write The Saddest Poem Of All Tonight. I Loved Her, And Sometimes She Loved Me Too.
Love
Pregnancy
Writing
It's Hard To Tell / If We Close Our Eyes Or If Night / Opens In Us Other Starred Eyes, / If It Burrows Into The Wall Of Our Dream / Till Some Other Door Opens. / But The Dream Is Only The Flitting Costume Of One Moment, / Is Spent In One Beat / Of The Darkness, / And Falls At Our Feet, Cast Off / As The Day Stirs And Sails Away With Us.
Dream
Wall
Fall
I Love All The Things There Are, And Of All Fires Love Is The Only Inexhaustible One; And That's Why I Go From Life To Life.
Inspirational
Inspirational Love
Love Is
Then I Speak To Her In A Language She Has Never Heard, I Speak To Her In Spanish, In The Tongue Of The Long, Crepuscular Verses Of Díaz Casanueva; In That Language In Which Joaquín Edwards Preaches Nationalism. My Discourse Is Profound; I Speak With Eloquence And Seduction; My Words, More Than From Me, Issue From The Warm Nights, From The Many Solitary Nights On The Red Sea, And When The Tiny Dancer Puts Her Arm Around My Neck, I Understand That She Understands. Magnificent Language!
Night
Issues
Sea
I No Longer Love Her, That's Certain, But Maybe I Love Her. Love Is So Short, Forgetting Is So Long.
Love
Long
Forget
By Night, Love, Tie Your Heart To Mine, And The Two Together In Their Sleep Will Defeat The Darkness
Love
Cute
Sweet
Hate Is Like A Swordfish, Working Through Water Invisibly And Then You See It Coming With Blood Along Its Blade, But Transparency Disarms It.
Hate
Blood
Water
You Know How This Is: If I Look At The Crystal Moon, At The Red Branch Of The Slow Autumn At My Window, If I Touch Near The Fire The Impalpable Ash Or The Wrinkled Body Of The Log, Everything Carries Me To You, As If Everything That Exists, Aromas, Light, Metals, Were Little Boats That Sail Toward Those Isles Of Yours That Wait For Me.
Autumn
Moon
Fire
Perhaps This War Will Pass Like The Others Which Divided Us Leaving Us Dead, Killing Us Along With The Killers But The Shame Of This Time Puts Its Burning Fingers To Our Faces. Who Will Erase The Ruthlessness Hidden In Innocent Blood?
Time
War
Blood
I Stroll Along Serenely, With My Eyes, My Shoes, My Rage, Forgetting Everything, I Walk By, Going Through Office Buildings And Orthopedic Shops, And Courtyards With Washing Hanging From The Line: Underwear, Towels And Shirts From Which Slow Dirty Tears Are Falling.
Dirty
Fall
Eye
The Typewriter Separated Me From A Deeper Intimacy With Poetry, And My Hand Brought Me Closer To That Intimacy Again.
Typewriters
Hands
Worship
This Time Is Difficult. Wait For Me. We Will Live It Out Vividly. Give Me Your Small Hand: We Will Rise And Suffer, We Will Feel, We Will Rejoice. We Are Once More The Pair Who Lived In Bristling Places, In Harsh Nests In The Rock. This Time Is Difficult. Wait For Me With A Basket, With A Shovel, With Your Shoes And Your Clothes. Now We Need Each Other, Not Only For The Carnations' Sake, Not Only To Look For Honey — We Need Our Hands To Wash With, To Make Fire.
Eye
Fire
Small Hands
Absence Is A House So Vast That Inside You Will Pass Through Its Walls And Hang Pictures On The Air.
Wall
Cancer
Air
And One By One The Nights Between Our Separated Cities Are Joined To The Night That Unites Us.
Long Distance Relationship
Night
Cities
Place Gifts Of Silver In Our Hands. Give Us This Day Our Daily Fish.
Rivers
Lakes
Hands
What Will They Say About My Poetry Who Never Touched My Blood?
Blood
Touched
On Our Earth, Before Writing Was Invented, Before The Printing Press Was Invented, Poetry Flourished. That Is Why We Know That Poetry Is Like Bread; It Should Be Shared By All, By Scholars And By Peasants, By All Our Vast, Incredible, Extraordinary Family Of Humanity.
Writing
Humanity
Earth
The Best Poet Is The Man Who Delivers Our Daily Bread: The Local Baker.
Food
Men
Cooking
No, My Dog Used To Gaze At Me, Paying Me The Attention I Need, The Attention Required To Make A Vain Person Like Me Understand That, Being A Dog, He Was Wasting Time, But, With Those Eyes So Much Purer Than Mine, He’d Keep On Gazing At Me With A Look That Reserved For Me Alone All His Sweet And Shaggy Life, Always Near Me, Never Troubling Me, And Asking Nothing.
Dog
Sweet
Eye
For Me Writing Is Like Breathing. I Could Not Live Without Breathing And I Could Not Live Without Writing.
Writing
Breathing
I Am Made Of Earth, And My Song Made Of Words.
Song
Earth
Made
Today Is Today, And Yesterday Is Gone. There Is No Doubt.
Yesterday
Doubt
Today
Loving Is A Journey With Water And With Stars, With Smothered Air And Abrupt Storms Of Flour: Loving Is A Clash Of Lightning-bolts And Two Bodies Defeated By A Single Drop Of Honey.
Stars
Journey
Air
Joyful, Joyful, Joyful, As Only Dogs Know How To Be Happy With Only The Autonomy Of Their Shameless Spirit.
Dog
Pet
Spirit
The Word Was Born In The Blood, Grew In The Dark Body, Beating, And Took Flight Through The Lips And The Mouth. Farther Away And Nearer Still, Still It Came From Dead Fathers And From Wondering Races, From Lands Which Had Turned To Stone, Lands Weary Of Their Poor Tribes, For When Grief Took To The Roads The People Set Out And Arrived And Married New Land And Water To Grow Their Words Again. And So This Is The Inheritance; This Is The Wavelength Which Connects Us With Dead Men And The Dawning Of New Beings Not Yet Come To Light.
Father
Grief
Dark
Love Is A War Of Lightning, And Two Bodies Ruined By A Single Sweetness.
War
Love Is
Two
Of Everything I Have Seen, It's You I Want To Go On Seeing: Of Everything I've Touched, It's Your Flesh I Want To Go On Touching. I Love Your Orange Laughter. I Am Moved By The Sight Of You Sleeping. What Am I To Do, Love, Loved One? I Don't Know How Others Love Or How People Loved In The Past. I Live, Watching You, Loving You. Being In Love Is My Nature.
Laughter
Sleep
Being In Love
I Have Slept With You All Night Long While The Dark Earth Spins With The Living And The Dead, And On Waking Suddenly In The Midst Of The Shadow My Arm Encircled Your Waist. Neither Night Nor Sleep Could Separate Us.
Sleep
Dark
Night
Never An Illness, Nor The Absence Of Grandeur, No, Nothing Is Able To Kill The Best In Us, That Kindness, Dear Sir, We Are Afflicted With: Beautiful Is The Flower Of Man, His Conduct, And Every Door Opens On The Beautiful Truth And Never Hides Treacherous Whispers. I Always Gained Something From Making Myself Better, Better Than I Am, Better Than I Was, That Most Subtle Citation: To Recover Some Lost Petal Of The Sadness I Inherited: To Search Once More For The Light That Sings Inside Of Me, The Unwavering Light.
Beautiful
Kindness
Flower
Everything Is Ceremony In The Wild Garden Of Childhood.
Children
Garden
Childhood
Tie Your Heart At Night To Mine, Love, And Both Will Defeat The Darkness Like Twin Drums Beating In The Forest Against The Heavy Wall Of Wet Leaves. Night Crossing: Black Coal Of Dream That Cuts The Thread Of Earthly Orbs With The Punctuality Of A Headlong Train That Pulls Cold Stone And Shadow Endlessly. Love, Because Of It, Tie Me To A Purer Movement, To The Grip On Life That Beats In Your Breast, With The Wings Of A Submerged Swan, So That Our Dream Might Reply To The Sky's Questioning Stars With One Key, One Door Closed To Shadow.
Dream
Stars
Wall
If We Were Not So Single-minded About Keeping Our Lives Moving And For Once Could Do Nothing, Perhaps A Huge Silence Might Interrupt This Sadness Of Never Understanding Ourselves And Of Threatening Ourselves With Death Perhaps The World Can Teach Us As When Everything Seems Dead But Later Proves To Be Alive.
Moving
Sadness
Silence
If Each Day Falls Inside Each Night, There Exists A Well Where Clarity Is Imprisoned. We Need To Sit On The Rim Of The Well Of Darkness And Fish For Fallen Light With Patience.
Fall
Night
Light
I Will Bring You Flowers From The Mountains, Bluebells, Dark Hazels, And Rustic Baskets Of Kisses. I Want To Do With You What Spring Does With The Cherry Trees.
Spring
Flower
Dark
I've Come Within Range Of Hate. Terrifying, Its Tremors, Its Dizzying Obsessions. Hate's Like A Swordfish Invisible In The Water, Knifing Suddenly Into Sight With Blood On Its Blade- Clear Water Misleads You.
Hate
Sight
Blood
We Have To Discard The Past / And, As One Builds / Floor By Floor, Window By Window, / And The Building Rises, / So Do We Keep Shedding - First, Broken Tiles, / Then Proud Doors... And Each New Day / Gleams / Like An Empty / Plate.
Past
Doors
Broken
Writing Poetry, We Live Among The Wild Beasts, And When We Touch A Man, The Stuff Of Someone In Whom We Believed, And He Goes To Pieces Like A Rotten Pie, You... Gather Together Whatever Can Be Salvaged, While I Cup My Hands Around The Live Coal Of Life.
Writing
Men
Hands
Then Scale By Scale, We Strip Off The Delicacy And Eat The Peaceful Mush Of Its Green Heart.
Heart
Peaceful
Delicacy
As If You Were On Fire From Within. The Moon Lives In The Lining Of Your Skin.
Love
Beauty
Moon
Megaphone In Which The Wind Passes Singing.
Wind
Singing
You Are Like Night, Calmed, Constellated. Your Silence Is Star-like, As Distant, As True.
Stars
Night
Silence
My Duty Moves Along With My Song: I Am I Am Not: That Is My Destiny. I Exist Not If I Do Not Attend To The Pain Of Those Who Suffer: They Are My Pains. For I Cannot Be Without Existing For All, For All Who Are Silent And Oppressed, I Come From The People And I Sing For Them: My Poetry Is Song And Punnishment.
Song
Pain
Moving
Love Is A Clash Of Lightnings
Love Is
Lightning
Clash
You Must Know That I Do Not Love And That I Love You, Because Everything Alive Has Its Two Sides; A Word Is One Wing Of Silence, Fire Has Its Cold Half. I Love You In Order To Begin To Love You, To Start Infinity Again And Never To Stop Loving You: That’s Why I Do Not Love You Yet. I Love You, And I Do Not Love You, As If I Held Keys In My Hand: To A Future Of Joy- A Wretched, Muddled Fate- My Love Has Two Lives, In Order To Love You. -sonnet Xliv
Love You
Fate
Fire
I Love You Without Knowing How, Or When, Or From Where. I Love You Simply, Without Problems Or Pride: I Love You In This Way Because I Do Not Know Any Other Way Of Loving But This, In Which There Is No I Or You, So Intimate That Your Hand Upon My Chest Is My Hand, So Intimate That When I Fall Asleep Your Eyes Close.
Love
Life
Romantic
I Move In The University Of The Waves.
Moving
Wave
University
And I, Infinitesima­l Being, Drunk With The Great Starry Void, Likeness, Image Of Mystery, I Felt Myself A Pure Part Of The Abyss, I Wheeled With The Stars, My Heart Broke Loose On The Wind.
Stars
Heart
Wind
Tell Me, Is The Rose Naked Or Is That Her Only Dress? Why Do Trees Conceal The Splendor Of Their Roots? Who Hears The Regrets Of The Thieving Automobile? Is There Anything In The World Sadder Than A Train Standing In The Rain?
Regret
Rain
Roots
Will Our Life Not Be A Tunnel Between Two Vague Clarities? Or Will It Not Be A Clarity Between Two Dark Triangles?
Dark
Tunnels
Two
The Birds Of Night Peck At The First Stars That Flash Like My Soul When I Love You.
Stars
Love You
Night
I Built Up These Lumber Piles Of Love, And With Fourteen Boards Each I Built Little Houses, So That Your Eyes, Which I Adore And Sing To, Might Live In Them. Now That I Have Declared The Foundations Of My Love, I Surrender This Century To You: Wooden Sonnets That Rise Only Because You Gave Them Life.
Eye
House
Boards
What Did The Tree Learn From The Earth To Be Able To Talk With The Sky?
Carpe Diem
Sky
Tree
Here I Love You And The Horizon Hides You In Vain. I Love You Still Among These Cold Things. Sometimes My Kisses Go On Those Heavy Vessels That Cross The Sea Towards No Arrival. I See Myself Forgotten Like Those Old Anchors. The Piers Sadden When The Afternoon Moors There. My Life Grows Tired, Hungry To No Purpose. I Love What I Do Not Have. You Are So Far. My Loathing Wrestles With The Slow Twilights. But Night Comes And Starts To Sing To Me.
Love You
Twilight
Tired
The Road Made Wet By The Water Of August Shines Like It Was Cut In Full Moonlight
Cutting
August
Water
But When I Call For A Hero, Out Comes My Lazy Old Self; So I Never Know Who I Am, Nor How Many I Am Or Will Be. I'd Love To Be Able To Touch A Bell And Summon The Real Me, Because If I Really Need Myself, I Mustn't Disappear.
Real
Hero
Self
If You Should Ask Me Where I've Been All This Time I Have To Say "things Happen." I Have To Dwell On Stones Darkening The Earth, On The River Ruined In Its Own Duration: I Know Nothing Save Things The Birds Have Lost, The Sea I Left Behind, Or My Sister Crying. Why This Abundance Of Places? Why Does Day Lock With Day? Why The Dark Night Swilling Round In Our Mouths? And Why The Dead?
Dark
Night
Rivers
Ah, Love Is A Voyage With Water And A Star, In Drowning Air And Squalls Of Precipitate Bran; Love Is A War Of Lights In The Lightning Flashes, Two Bodies Blasted In A Single Burst Of Honey.
Love
Stars
War
I Was The Owner Of My Own Darkness.
Darkness
Owners
My Own
I Had No More Alphabet Than The Journeying Of The Swallows, The Pure And Tiny Water Of The Small, Fiery Bird That Dances Rising From The Pollen.
Water
Bird
Rising
Maybe Nothingness Is To Be Without Your Presence, Without You Moving, Slicing The Noon Like A Blue Flower, Without You Walking Later Through The Fog And The Cobbles, Without The Light You Carry In Your Hand, Golden, Which Maybe Others Will Not See, Which Maybe No One Knew Was Growing Like The Red Beginnings Of A Rose. In Short, Without Your Presence: Without Your Coming Suddenly, Incitingly, To Know My Life, Gust Of A Rosebush, Wheat Of Wind: Since Then I Am Because You Are, Since Then You Are, I Am, We Are, And Through Love I Will Be, You Will Be, We Will Be.
Flower
Moving
Light
Don't Leave Me, Even For An Hour, Because Then The Little Drops Of Anguish Will All Run Together, The Smoke That Roams Looking For A Home Will Drift Into Me, Choking My Lost Heart.
Love
Crush
Running
With Your Name On My Mouth And A Kiss That Never Broke Away From Yours.
Kissing
Names
Mouths
Then Love Knew It Was Called Love. And When I Lifted My Eyes To Your Name, Suddenly Your Heart Showed Me My Way
Love
Heart
Eye
Death Is The Stone Into Which Our Oblivion Hardens.
Death
Stones
Oblivion
Where Were You Then? Who Else Was There? Saying What? Why Will The Whole Of Love Come On Me Suddenly When I Am Sad And Feel You Are Far Away?
Far Away
Feels
Whole
The Tomato Offers Its Gift Of Fiery Color And Cool Completeness.
Food
Color
Cooking
Love Is So Short, Forgetting Is So Long.
Love
Pain
Long
I Want To Do To You What Spring Does With The Cherry Trees.
Love
Romantic
Spring
Tomorrow We Will Only Give Them A Leaf Of The Tree Of Our Love, A Leaf Which Will Fall On The Earth Like If It Had Been Made By Our Lips Like A Kiss Which Falls From Our Invincible Heights To Show The Fire And The Tenderness Of A True Love.
Fall
Kissing
Fire
Who Do I Belong To? How Come I Mortgaged My Being Till I Don't Belong To Myself? How Come I Sold My Blood? And Who Now Owns My Indecisions, My Hands, My Private Pain, My Pride?
Pain
Pride
Blood
Peace Goes Into The Making Of A Poem As Flour Goes Into The Making Of Bread.
Peace
Art
Bread
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