Clenched Soul Poem By Pablo Neruda

"Clenched Soul" (sometimes titled "We Have Lost Even" or known from its opening line) is one of Pablo Neruda's most touching love poems. 

 
Written by the renowned  Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), a Nobel Prize winner celebrated for his passionate and sensual explorations of love, nature, and human emotion, this piece comes from his early lyrical style. It captures a deep sense of longing, melancholy, and sudden overwhelming remembrance of an absent loved one. 

Set against the fading light of twilight and simple, everyday images (like a piece of sun burning like a coin), the speaker's soul tightens in familiar sadness while questioning where the beloved was during moments of intense feeling.
The poem beautifully conveys the ache of lost intimacy and the way love can strike unexpectedly, making it a classic example of Neruda's ability to blend tenderness with quiet heartbreak.

Clenched Soul Poem By Pablo Neruda 

We have lost even this twilight.

No one saw us this evening hand in hand

while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window

the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun

burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched

in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?

Who else was there?

Saying what?

Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly

when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight

and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings

toward the twilight erasing statues.