If you keep trying to be brave

on and on forever do you eventually build it up like a muscle? or do you wear down
like an old and tired person
like a stone getting smoother but still stone, worn away, worn away, until there is
nothing left to fear because you are too tired and there is not much left of you
anyhow?


Absence

I have scarcely left you
when you go in me, crystalline,
or trembling,
or uneasy, wounded by me
or overwhelmed with love, as when your eyes
close upon the gift of life
that without cease I give you.

My love,
we have found each other
thirsty and we have
drunk up all the water and the blood,
we found each other
hungry
and we bit each other
as fire bites,
leaving wounds in us.

But wait for me,
keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
a rose.


P. Neruda