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 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.

~ Pablo Neruda 

There is something about love that makes people go mushy, sappy and all those things. They write poetry vowing their eternal love, how they will die of unrequited love and how there can be no one else for them. In my opinion, what bull!

Neruda gives it just as he sees it - “If little by little you stop loving me; I shall stop loving you little by little.” No one dies of a broken heart. Hearts heal and memories fade. And we all find someone new to love.

Love, like all other matters of the heart, is selfish. It wants something in return, it demands love in return. The ending lines of the poem are some of the most beautiful and evocative lines I have read.

My love feeds on your love, beloved,

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

Without leaving mine.

I always wondered if I was a freak of nature to move on so effortlessly every time I had a broken heart. But seems like, if no one else, Neruda understood me J