“In times that are changing ever faster we need things that preserve the moment”

“In the world increasingly devalued by modern technology, where the pace of life becomes ever faster, we need something to make us pause for breath. Something to remind us of what life is really all about. To remind us of the meaning of friendship, of the uniqueness of each individual. We need something to give us back our time. Time to reflect. Time to read. Time to write letters. Time to travel. Or simply to look at a picture, at the scenery, at a child. Time for beauty, for feelings. Time for the things which really matters.”

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. 

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance." 

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. 

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. 

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky. 

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes? 

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her. 

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass. 

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me. 

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her. 

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me. 

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer. 

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear. 

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes. 

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long. 

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her. 

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

 ----Pablo Neruda