My Tango Diaries

Several people have recommended this poet to me, and there were so many beautiful, haunting poems to choose from that it took me ages to settle on this one - such a crystallized expression of la duende, (and of tango of course), of the dark places we carry with us and still manage to love from. Sonnet XVII - Pablo Neruda I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall as...

Over at Alex.Tango.Fuego 's blog, I found out poet and novelist Mario Benedetti had died. Alex posted Bandoneon - a moving and appropriate work, I think. Here is another one I've always loved from Only in the Meantime , translated by Harry Morales. You can read a large portion of that book on Google Books' site here: http://tinyurl.com/qyjfed God Willing It's true, somewhat silent trees surround me, they appear on the landscape as if they're searching for me but I also look for myself and have desperately forgotten my lips. I've just returned from the last silence and God was present or something like God punctually desolating my dream. I suffered like one suffers, very happily, lying here on the land, almost uninhabited, asking, not asking, letting myself be taken. And God was present, or something like God intentionally disenchanting my solitude. Nevertheless now I'm surrounded by the relatives in my deserted world: the brother sky, the sister afternoon, t...