If You Forget Me

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.

Pablo Neruda

*sigh...*

There's this song, by Sandi Thom called I Wish I was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in my Hair). She's singing about how she wishes she could've been born in '77 or '69, and expereinced the revolutionary spirit among that generation's youth. I wish I'd been alive in the late 50s or early 60s (as a twenty-year old) and been able to (maybe) hear or meet people like Neruda and Guevara and Marquez. I suppose I could still accomplish one of those, even now... but how incredible would it have been to actually breathe the same air as someone like Neruda.