if you forget me

i had the chance to read again a poem by pablo neruda which, the first time i read it when i was younger, felt vague and distant and understanding it required an academic, structured inquiry into each line of the poem. reading it again last night, it was flawless, as if i have uttered every line in it myself. it is both beautiful and sad at the same time, this temporal incoherence of emotions. in the context of pablo neruda's if you forget me, it is beautiful because it meant i have loved, and sad because it meant i have loved someone who might not feel the same towards me at all.

human experience is a curious thing. even though it is glaringly logical (like, duh), it still amazes me how every written piece of literary work elicits different feelings each time you re-read simply because life happens in between.

If you forget me

I want you to know

one thing. 

You know how this is: 

if I look 

at the crystal moon, at the red branch 

of the slow autumn at my window, 

if I touch 

near the fire 

the impalpable ash 

or the wrinkled body of the log, 

everything carries me to you, 

as if everything that exists, 

aromas, light, metals, 

were little boats 

that sail 

toward those isles of yours that wait for me. 

Well, now, 

if little by little you stop loving me 

I shall stop loving you little by little. 

If suddenly 

you forget me 

do not look for me, 

for I shall already have forgotten you. 

If you think it long and mad, 

the wind of banners 

that passes through my life, 

and you decide 

to leave me at the shore 

of the heart where I have roots, 

remember 

that on that day, 

at that hour, 

I shall lift my arms 

and my roots will set off 

to seek another land. 

But 

if each day, 

each hour, 

you feel that you are destined for me 

with implacable sweetness, 

if each day a flower 

climbs up to your lips to seek me, 

ah my love, ah my own, 

in me all that fire is repeated, 

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, 

my love feeds on your love, beloved, 

and as long as you live it will be in your arms 

without leaving mine. 

::