The Question

The Question

Love, a question

has destroyed you.

I have come back to you

from thorny uncertainty.

I want you straight as

the sword or the road.

But you insist

on keeping a nook

of shadow that I do not want.

My love,

understand me,

I love all of you,

from eyes to feet, to toenails,

inside,

all the brightness, which you kept.

It is I, my love,

who knocks at your door.

It is not the ghost, it is not

the one who once stopped

at your window.

I knock down the door:

I enter your life:

I come to live in your soul:

you cannot cope with me.

You must open door to door,

you must obey me,

you must open your eyes

so that I may search in them,

you must see how I walk

with heavy steps

along all the roads

that, blind, were waiting for me.

Do not fear,

I am yours,

but

I am not the passenger or the beggar,

I am your master,

the one you were waiting for,

and now I enter

your life,

no more to leave it,

love, love, love,

but to stay.

Pablo Neruda