If You Forget Me

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.