Here's my own translation, while we're at it: I wouldn't love you if you were a white rose, or topaz, Or a carnation's fletching which spreads on fire: I love you like certain uncertain things, Secretly, amid wholeness and heart. I love you like the plant that doesn't bloom but has Within it, hidden, the life of other ones, and thanks to your love what lives within me is the kissed scent that it lifted from the earth. I love you not knowing how, when or whence, I love you right ahead without worries or pride: So I love you for I don't know how else to. But here in this way that I'm not and you're not, so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes are closed in my sleep.
beezneez - I love your translation -- lines 6-7 make much more sense to me now. And this line: Let me know if you take up translating poetry.
I understand that feeling of closeness, as if my blood coursed through another's veins. so close that your eyes are closed in my sleep.
as a result of this conversation, I'm going to off to hear this lecture instead of working. Lecture by Translator in Residence Peter Cole
That looks like a cool lecture. I have always wondered what the process of translating poems between two disparate languages would be like. Even between Spanish and English there are shadings and connotations from what at first glance appear to be straightforward translation.