I have dreamed of you so much

I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?

I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my 
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many 
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.

O scales of feeling.

I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up. 
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who 
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and 
face of some passerby.

I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much 
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom 
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow that
moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.

- Robert Desnos

Saw this in The Guardian's Books Blog here. (Yes I do go read those things -.- gawd... I just wasn't made for these times.)

There's a thing about poetry that seems to reach an arm into the deepest recesses of your soul and drags something of it into the light of day, to be examined, exulted, execrated as the case might be. It's like putting your beating heart and trembling brain under the microscope (to say nothing of your ethereal soul). This is one of those poems that particularly struck me; it's why I'm still into poetry.

I actually think that's not a very good translation of the original poem in French; but since I can't read French I'm afraid that'll have to do for now. Here's the original (source here)

J’ai tant rêvé de toi
J’ai tant rêvé de toi que tu perds ta réalité.

Est-il encore temps d’atteindre ce corps vivant
et de baiser sur cette bouche la naissance
de la voix qui m’est chère?

J’ai tant rêvé de toi que mes bras habitués en étreignant ton ombre
à se croiser sur ma poitrine ne se plieraient pas
au contour de ton corps, peut-être.

Et que, devant l’apparence réelle de ce qui me hante
et me gouverne depuis des jours et des années
je deviendrais une ombre sans doute,

Ô balances sentimentales.

J’ai tant rêvé de toi qu’il n'est plus temps sans doute que je m’éveille.
Je dors debout, le corps exposé à toutes les apparences de la vie
et de l’amour et toi, la seule qui compte aujourd'hui pour moi,
je pourrais moins toucher ton front et tes lèvres que les premières lèvres
et le premier front venu.

J’ai tant rêvé de toi, tant marché, parlé, couché avec ton fantôme
qu’il ne me reste plus peut-être, et pourtant,
qu’a être fantôme parmi les fantômes et plus ombre cent fois
que l’ombre qui se promène et se promènera allègrement
sur le cadran solaire de ta vie.