I Like for You to be Still (Me gustas cuando callas)

1I like you you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent, 
and you hear me from far away, and my voice does not touch you.
It looks as though your eyes had flown away
and it looks as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.
 
5Like all things are full of my soul
You emerge from the things, full of my soul.
Dream butterfly, you look like my soul,
and you look like a melancoly word.
 
I like you when you are quiet and it is as though you are distant.
10It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
let me fall quiet with your own silence.
 
Let me also speak to you with your silence
Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring.
15You are like the night, quiet and constellated.
Your silence is of a star, so far away and solitary.

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent.
Distant and painful as if you had died.
A word then, a smile is enough.
20And I am happy, happy that it is not true.
Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.
 
Como todas las cosas estan llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mia.
Mariposa de sueno, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolia.
 
Me gustas cuando callas y estas como distante.
Y estas como quejandote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
dejame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.
 
Dejame que te hable tambien con tu silencio
claro como una lampara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.


Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.


http://thue.stanford.edu/jacquie/callas.html


This is the first Pablo Neruda poem that I have ever heard (or remember hearing knowing it for what it was).  I find it to be a peaceful contrast to what you would expect from the fiery passion of a typical love poem. Although the speaker at first seems to say that he prefers this calm, almost non-existent lover, he smoothly changes his opinion at the last line when he mentions that "... I am happy, happy that it's not true" (20).


Ballad: The type of poetry this poem is: a narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style (as defined by McGraw Hill Online Learning Center).
Connotation: "... my voice does not touch you" (2). The word "touch" is not used in its physical sense, but figuratively as a voice does not have any substance.
Simile: "It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove" (10)