Falling Inlove with Pablo Neruda


As I read my mails, I fell upon this poem from my highschool classmate's blog. I have never been touched as much by any other poem as this one did. What kind of girl will not fall for a guy who will quote you lines of "If You Forget Me", even if he claims to have written those lines for you, when you know very well that it was by Pablo Neruda? Who cares? As long as he quotes these lines verbatim, he's a keeper. I mean, not a lot of guys appreciate poetry nowadays.

My sister once told me that if she found a guy who will play the song "The First Time I loved Forever", and narrate that poem by e.e. cummings, on her wedding day, then it is a sign that he IS "The One" .

My sign is this poem.

If you forget me

by Pablo Neruda

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.