Pablo Neruda’s ⁍ Sonnet 71

Love crosses its islands, from grief to grief,
it sets its roots, watered with tears,
and no one-no one-can escape the heart’s progress
as it runs, silent and carnivorous.

You and I searched for a wide valley, for another planet
where the salt wouldn’t touch your hair,
where sorrows couldn’t grow because of anything I did,
where bread could live and not grow old.

A planet entwined with vistas and foliage,
a plain, a rock, hard and unoccupied:
we wanted to build a strong nest

with our own hands, without hurt or harm or speech,
but love was not like that: love was a lunatic city
with crowds of people blanching on their porches.