Wednesday, October 28, 2015

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. 


::

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