from that terrible love the soft pure hands
gave peace to my eyes and sun to my senses.

Of so much moon were your hips to me,
of all the sun your deep mouth and its delight,
of so much burning light like honey in the shade

I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

I built up these lumber piles of love, and with fourteen boards each I built little houses, so that your eyes, which I adore and sing to, might live in them. Now that I have declared the foundations of my love, I surrender this century to you: wooden sonnets that rise only because you gave them life.

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.