Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly. - Pablo Neruda

Don't go far off, not even for a day,
because I don't know how to say it - a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in
an empty station when the trains are
parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then
the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve
on the beach, may your eyelids never flutter
into the empty distance. Don't LEAVE me for
a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll
have gone so far I'll wander mazily
over all the earth, asking, will you
come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

When I got the chance
I asked them a slew of questions.
They offered to burn me;
it was the only thing they knew.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.