SONNET 17 | Poetry – A Soft Place To Fall

SONNET 17

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

– Pablo Neruda, Sonnet 17 from One Hundred Love Sonnets

If you love listening to poetry instead, you can hear Joanna Gleason reading it here, how cool is that?

I recently discovered that something terribly important has been missing from my life. Poetry.

Poetry, with it’s delicious words and beautiful rhythm, creating colourful images in my mind; it seems incredible to me that all of a sudden, after so many years, the realisation of how much I miss reading it and hearing it hit me, wham! It’s as though somebody flipped a switch in my brain and now I need it. I mean really need it.  In fact, not just poetry but music too but that’s a whole other topic.

So, for us poetry lovers I’m starting a new series on the blog; Poetry – A Soft Place To Fall.

There will of course be images accompanying the poetry; not necessarily related to the poem, but definitely inspirational, smile inducing and restful, giving you a little bit of happy wiggle room in your busy day.

I will naturally also continue with my normal posts adding photography tips wherever I can, including metadata and settings for the images posted; as a photographer I always find that most helpful, don’t you?  Whenever I see a photograph I like, I immediately wonder to myself, “What lens was he using? What aperture? How fast was the shutter speed?”.  I’m open to answering any questions about how the shot was set up or anything else about the image that you feel could help you learn to take better photographs.

Never give up and always be on the look-out for happy wiggle-room,