Finished: The Essential Neruda Selected Poems (Neruda, edited by Mark Eisner) "Yo no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero. Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido" A book full of lovely, introspective poems about love and loss, written by Pablo Neruda in his native Spanish, and then translated on each facing page by Mark Eisner and his team. Of course, I guess interpretation is open for discussion, because in all the years I had of Spanish growing up, quiero meant want and not love, but the above sentence is translated as "I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, and forgetting is so long." So, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder. All I know is that I really love that line "Love is so short, and forgetting is so long." How true is that when dealing with the loss of love or the loss of a loved one?  I read Neruda's poem The Morning Is Full online and really liked it, and it made me want to read much more, so this book seemed like a nice collection of his works to explore. :-) As the editor explains, the poems look and roll of the tongue so much more fluently in their native Spanish, but I just read all the English versions, occasionally glancing at some of the words of the Spanish poems. A few of my favorites were...The Great Ocean, The United Fruit Co., Poet's Obligation, Ode to the Book (II) and the one below from his book of Twenty Love Poems:

From Twenty Love Poems
#20 I can write the saddest verses

I can write the saddest verses tonight.

Write, for example, "The night is full of stars,
  twinkling blue, in the distance."

The night wind spins in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this I held her in my arms,
I kissed her so many times beneath the infinite sky.

She loved me, at times I loved her too.
How not to have loved her great still eyes.

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I don't have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls onto my soul like dew onto grass.

What difference that my love could not keep her.
The night is full of stars, and she is not with me.

That's all. In the distance, someone sings. In the distance.
My soul is not at peace with having lost her. 

As if to bring her closer, my gaze searches for her,
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, of then, now are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, it's true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched for the wind that would touch her ear.

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

I no longer love her, it's true, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, and forgetting is so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not at peace with having lost her.

Though this may be the final sorrow she causes me,
and these last verses I write for her. 

Pablo Neruda