I am because you are....

LXIX

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,

without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, invitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.

--Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
from Cien sonetos de amor.

I no longer have a life I can manage on my own.

Sue will be back tomorrow or the next day, depending on what happens with connecting flights. I will be off blip until I discover what comes next.