I Like it When You Are Quiet...

I Like it When You Are Quiet 

by Pablo Neruda

I like it when you are quiet because it is as

though you are absent

&you hear me from far away, & my voice 

does not touch you

It looks as though your eyes had flown away

& it looks as if a kiss has sealed your mouth.

Like all things are full of my soul

You emerge from the things full of my soul Dream butterfly, 

you look like my soul,& you look like a melancholy word.

I like when you are quiet & it is as though

you are distant.

It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby.

& you hear from me far away, & my voice

does not reach you:

let me fall quiet with your own silence

Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring.

You are like the night, quiet & constellated.

Your silence is of a star, so far away & solitary.

I like you when you are quiet because it is as

though you were absent. 

Distant & painful as if you had died

A word then, a smile is enough

& I am happy, happy that it is not true.