Page 79 of Her Maine Reaction

It would seem that Sheriff Taylor has a thing for love poetry. Specifically, Pablo Neruda poetry. This man just keeps surprising me. And everything I learn, I like.

Damn it!

But I love Pablo Neruda. So I take it with me over to the windows, and look out at the snow that blankets everything in over three feet of blinding white beauty. The bare trees are shadowed with snow on their branches, while the tall pine trees are bending under the weight of it. It’s all so picture perfect, like the inside of a snow globe after shaking it, and the glitter settles over the scene.

There’s no one walking around, and there’s no cars on the road–there’s nothing. Everyone is safe in their houses with fireplaces, candles, books, and maybe a loved one to pass the time with.

A snow storm like this forces us to stop and step back. To live simply. No better excuse to do nothing when you physically can’t leave the house.

Walking back to the couch, I snuggle up with a blanket and open to a random page in Neruda’sLove Poemsbook.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

Reading from the middle of “If You Forget Me,” I’m struck by how it hits me. Hard.

If it were true, then what I feel for Ryan is reflected in him as well. Our fires would burn together.

I don’t know how he feels, though.

He touches me like I’m his, and kisses me like he craves the taste of my lips.

Our fires might burn for one another, but maybe we’re just too consumed by the now to see past the flames.

I let the pages slip through my fingers and look down at the page they landed on–the beginning of “Night on the Island.”

All night I have slept with you

next to the sea, on the island.

Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and

sleep,

between fire and water.

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