I Love NY

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 asleep.

For my money, this is one of the greatest love poems ever written. In a perfect world, everyone would get a chance at least once in their life to read this poem to someone and really mean it as their own words, and for that someone to hear it, believe it, and feel the same way. And even more to the point, I’ve heard that Neruda wrote this poem to his wife. Perfect worlds aside, that should give pause even to the most hardened cynic about the possibilities for deep, passionate, lasting love within a lifelong relationship.

Well, we do not live in a perfect world, and many people do not get to read this poem in such a way, and many people who do read it have no business doing so. Like much of Neruda, the unblinking ferocity of its passion and the delicateness of its beauty have been appropriated by those who have no appreciation of its true power or value, like someone who steals a van Gogh and hangs it in their bathroom. Hopefully, I am not one of them when I suggest that this poem, with the object of its beloved unspecified, may help unlock what we mean when we claim to love New York.

“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off,” he begins. As beautiful as those things are (the perennial beauty of a red flower, the eternal beauty of a red precious stone, the fleeting beauty of sparks from a fire), as popular as they are as metaphors for love, they have nothing to do with what he feels for her. Those are all things that are superficially beautiful, easily recognized and appreciated by any who gazes upon them. Any idiot can appreciate the beauty of a blossoming flower; his love is far more profound, far more intimate, far more rare: “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.” It is a deeply knowing love, a love that knows and treasures what the casual gaze of the world never gets to see, indeed could never see because it cannot be known outside of the relationship.

It is also, ultimately, a mysterious love, an inexplicable one. What plant never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers? What certain solid fragrance is he talking about? What exactly is the place between the shadow and the soul? None of it really makes sense. Which, of course, is the point: “I love you without knowing how, or why, or from where.” We spend so much time trying to quantify love, classify it, evaluate it, deconstruct it, test it. But love is not a theorem that can be proven, nor an argument that can be won. Love is either real, or it is not. And its reality can never defined or explained, but simply known and experienced.

There are lots of outward things to appreciate about New York: its energy; its size; its cultural depth and breadth and diversity; its history; its power; its unique opportunities. We may greatly appreciate and value those things; they may even be the things that initially drew us to New York and first excited us about it, like the first flushes of desire and infatuation in a budding relationship. But they are not reasons that explain our love for it; reasons are never enough, and there are always good reasons not to love (it’s crowded/dirty/inconvenient/expensive…).

Our love is much simpler and straightforward than that. We love because it is the only thing we can do; our love itself becomes part of who we are: “I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you…” The city, in a very real way, becomes a part of us, to the point where we no longer think of ourselves in purely individual terms, but as part of a larger intertwined whole without ever losing our individuality.

I have lived in this city for over a decade, and while that relationship has had its ups and downs, I have never once desired to leave (though I have had some good reasons to do so), never once grown tired or indifferent to its hidden beauty, never felt unappreciated or that I did not belong or that I did not have something to offer, and never been able to adequately explain why that is so. All I know is that, in a very real way, I would not be me without this city, and I don’t want to be.

The city has been the witness and companion and partner in my life that has been with me and for me in my greatest joys and heartaches, hopes and disappointments. No, it does not replace having what Neruda himself had in terms of a person with whom to truly share your life and being. But it is still, undeniably, a loving relationship. And perhaps I know that to be true the most because I don’t seem to be able to explain exactly how, or when, or from where it is so. I just know that it is.