Poetry Journal #4 - 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

In this poem the poet is clearly speaking to his love, or potentially to his lost love. The energy behind this poem is very interesting, as he enters the poem in a very different place from where he exits. At the beginning, this poem feels very much like a warning, a caution to the recipient of the message, with lines like if "you decide to leave me at the shore" then "I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land," implying not so obscurely that if the recipient does not return his affection, love, or attention, he will seek it elsewhere.

However, the poem exits in an almost breathtakingly tender and passionate manner. The lines "in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten," are full of such wanton passion for the recipient that it is clear that the beginning warnings in the poem are from a place of desperation that they not come to pass.

The final line "and as long as you live it [my love] will be in your arms without leaving mine" is one that I am really impressed by. Love poetry is so difficult to write without sounding cliche, and I feel like the implication of "forever" at the close of this poem just manages to avoid this, so the poem really works in this way. Neruda does an outstanding job of writing a beautiful love poem that captures not only the passion and desire of the love, but also the desperation and fear of losing it.