I want what I love to continue to live,
and you whom I love and sang above
everything else 10
to continue to flourish, full-flowered:
so that you can reach everything my love
directs you to,
so that my shadow can travel along in
your hair,
so that everything can learn the reason for
my song.
Poem Text
Line 1
Pablo Neruda’s ‘‘Sonnet LXXXIX’’ is in ‘‘Night,’’
the last section of theOne Hundred Love Sonnets,
a sonnet series in four parts, which the poet dedi-
cated to Matilde Urrutia. The sonnets in the
section called ‘‘Morning’’ are full of the early joy
of love; in ‘‘Afternoon,’’ they are full of domestic
life; ‘‘Evening’’ concerns the challenges of love;
and ‘‘Night’’ includes several death poems, fore-
telling the couple’s final separation.
In‘‘Sonnet LXXXIX,’’the speaker addresses
his lover, saying that when he dies, he wants her
to place her hands on his eyes. He prepares her
for his death by giving instructions on what to
do. Rituals of caring for the deceased person’s
body include closing the eyes, washing the body,
and dressing and laying it out for viewing. All
through the love poems, Neruda has described
private rituals he shared with Matilde, describ-
ing her hands in many sonnets as a live-giving
force. Here the speaker asks only for his lover to
put her hands on his eyes. He wants that to be his
last touch of earthly life. Since she is sometimes
seen as an earth goddess in the poems, the
request also suggests the earth’s last touch as it
covers him in a grave.
Line 2
The speaker declares that her hands contain light
and wheat. In many of the sonnets, the lover is
compared to specific natural elements, the light
of the moon or sun and to wheat and bread.
Bread is the simple sustainer of life. Their love
is like the baking of bread. He is asking her to
put her hands full of life on his eyes. They will be
his last nourishment. The bread is a communion
image, though Neruda secularizes the meaning.
The speaker requests no priest to attend him
when he dies but his lover, and no communion
but her hands.
Line 3
By putting her hands on his eyes, she will put
freshness in him once more. The sonnets identify
the lover as the speaker’s very life. If she leaves
the room, the light goes out. Wherever she walks,
she brings life—to the house, to the garden, to
nature, and to him.
Line 4
The softness of her hands changed his destiny,
and he wants to feel that once more, even though
at that future moment he will be dead. The lover
changed the speaker’s destiny with her touch and
that is why he wants her hands on his corpse.
MEDIA
ADAPTATIONS
Poetry Suite from ‘The Postman,’Miramax/
Hollywood Records, 1996, audio CD, fea-
tures celebrities such as Sting, Julia Roberts,
Ralph Fiennes, Ethan Hawkes, Andy Gar-
cia, Madonna, Glenn Close, and Samuel L.
Jackson reading Neruda poems in English,
including a couple of the love sonnets.
Pablo Neruda reads his ‘‘Arte Poetica’’ onThe
Caedmon Poetry Collection: A Century of Poets
Reading Their Work, Volume 3, 2000.
Pablo Neruda: Love, Protest, and Exileis a
fifty-minute film in Spanish, VHS and DVD,
by the Films Media Group, 2004. It covers
Neruda’s literary output and political activ-
ities, using archival photographs, film foot-
age, and scholarly commentary.
The Brazilian singer, Luciana Souza, trans-
lates and sings Neruda poems onNerudain
her original compositions, accompanied by
her percussion and piano, with piano parts
by Edward Simon, Sunny Side label, 2004,
on audio CD, or MP3 download.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Peter Lieber-
son’sNeruda Songsin Spanish, a cycle of
five Neruda love sonnets with Robert Levine
and the Boston Symphony, Trumpet Swan
label, 2006, audio CD or MP3 download.
Sonnet LXXXIX
