Tonight I can write the saddest lines*
“Tonight I can write the saddest lines”*,
When birds sang their mourning songs at night
And paper under my pen
Melted like wax
As a flicker of the candle
Words spread softly under my touch
Making the paper wet
With tears
Coming from my heart
With passion stern as longing
I wrote of victories
That conquered despair
And before this candle
That lit my night
Burned out
I reached out for the remaining star
In the sky
And placed it
Near your bed
“Tonight I can write the saddest lines”*,
Written in silence
With the sighs of my heart
They emerged from the depths
Where language cannot reach
But only love, and hope, and tears
Yet in the far room of my soul
Deep in the chambers inside my core
I found an inner star
That like a pearl
Shines
To defy all the sadness of this life
It is carved in my being
Unwilling to let go
It conquers all evil
For it is rooted in
Love
And that star at your bedside
Will light up your night
And every dark passage
Where you have to walk
Will now strangely seem
Bright
© Iva Beranek
* A line from Pablo Neruda
