To Go Along With Modigli's Ponderings About Love...

After my ex-fiance and I went our separate ways, I was sent back to MacDill AFB in Tampa (It was either there of Ft. Bragg, N.C. ... let's see Tampa, FL or Fayetteville, NC? Easy choice). I was pretty broken up for quite a while. I felt alone, abandoned, betrayed, etc.. You name a negative emotion, I felt it. Now Tampa had this great old indendent movie theater that I absolutely loved. I would catch all of my off the wall indie flicks there and caught a movie that got me interested in whom I consider to be one of the greatest poets of all time, Pablo Neruda.

The movie, of course, was Il Postino. I have owned the movie since it was first available on DVD and I will always own a copy. This is one of my top 5 of all time. Anyhow, I began to read Neruda's poetry and one night I came across this great poem that completely describes the feelings of heartbreak better than any other I have read. It's a bit overused by fans of Neruda, but I do love it ....

Pablo Neruda - Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her

So if you're feeling a bit down, hopefully reading this will be a sort of catharsis to help you get out your emotions and start to heal a bit more. Watch the movie if you haven't seen it and you'll thank me for it.