If You Forget Me<br /><br />I want you to know<br />one thing.<br /><br />You know how this is:<br />if I look<br />at the crystal moon, at the red branch<br />of the slow autumn at my window,<br />if I touch<br />near the fire<br />the impalpable ash<br />or the wrinkled body of the log,<br />everything carries me to you,<br />as if everything that exists,<br />aromas, light, metals,<br />were little boats<br />that sail<br />toward those isles of yours that wait for me.<br /><br />Well, now,<br />if little by little you stop loving me<br />I shall stop loving you little by little.<br /><br />If suddenly<br />you forget me<br />do not look for me,<br />for I shall already have forgotten you.<br /><br />If you think it long and mad,<br />the wind of banners<br />that passes through my life,<br />and you decide<br />to leave me at the shore<br />of the heart where I have roots,<br />remember<br />that on that day,<br />at that hour,<br />I shall lift my arms<br />and my roots will set off<br />to seek another land.<br /><br />But<br />if each day,<br />each hour,<br />you feel that you are destined for me<br />with implacable sweetness,<br />if each day a flower<br />climbs up to your lips to seek me,<br />ah my love, ah my own,<br />in me all that fire is repeated,<br />in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,<br />my love feeds on your love, beloved,<br />and as long as you live it will be in your arms<br />without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda