Okay, so I know a lot of people out there aren't really into poetry in a major way (or at all, really)...but this is a poem I go around stumping to just about everyone. You know how it is...you come across something so beautiful, you just have to share it with people. It's Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII: Love.

I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
Or arrow of carnations that propagate fire.
I love you as certain dark things are loved:
Secretly, between the shadow and the soul;
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom
And carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers...
And thanks to your love, darkly in my body
Lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where;
I love you simply, without problems or pride.
I love you in this way because I know no other way of loving

But this, in which there is no I or you:
So close, that your hand upon my chest is my hand;
So close, that when I fall asleep, it is your eyes that close.

God, I love this one. Actually, I love most of his stuff. They're all translations into English, though, since the originals were in Spanish, but it makes you wonder...if the translation can feel like such a kick to the gut, how beautiful must the original be? His "Body of a Woman" is amazing...this one line gets me everytime: "You look like a world, lying in surrender." Gah. Oh, and his "Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines"...wow...just...wow.

It's amazing the power that words can carry...how immensely evocative they are...how, to someone with an imagination (and hoo boy, do I ever have one!), words can convey more than a picture ever could. And I've seen this power mostly in poetry and songs...Not just Neruda, but Frost, and Dylan Thomas, and Byron, and Shakespeare and...Metallica, and 3 Doors Down, and Deathcab for Cutie, and Bif Naked, and....okay, it could go on forever.

But seriously. Do yourself a favour. Read Neruda's "Sonnet XVII" and "Body of a Woman". And Ben Jonson's "Love Poem to Celia". And then listen to Metallica's "Turn the Pages". And Bif Naked's "Lucky". And Bush's "Out of This World". And Staind's "It's Been A While".

Actually, listen to just about anything that makes you smile and sit down and say "Oh." Do that once a day, and I think it'll be a whole lot better for you than any vitamin tonic or calcium tablet or iron pill.

Now if I could just sell that theory to my doctor. Sigh.