If You Forget Me

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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.

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Hayatti, what I meant was a true warrior fights out of love for his enemies. The ultimate purpose is to bring them back to a better state than they were in. The prophet (saws) was the best example of this. He fought only to end oppression and so that people could practice Islam peacefully. Fighting out of hatred of people, for material gain or pride is the inferior form of warfare. And the reason I brought it up is because, in its noblest form, conquest involves love of one's subjects which is not reciprocated - not romantic love or love of admiration but more like a parental love or the love of a caretaker.

i agree with idstar and mahagabeen... basically, the idea that the reciprocity/conditionality doesn't cheapen the love but actually makes it more authentic, more of what it's meant to be, relational and human. and i definitely agree with superman, this is a good village.

area, i don't get the part about the love of a conqueror. is this meant to be an analogy?

I like this place, and these people..

Feed love with reciprocity, respect and tenderness, and you reap the same. When such a strong foundation is built - we go beyond the pragmatic poetry here into the realm of the ideal that is more typical of poetry. The ideal cannot exist without the pragmatic at its base. The two are in fact, the same. The ideal, seemingly unconditional is achieved when the reciprocity is so natural, it?s effortless and unconscious.

In fact, the whole thing is probably ambiguous. Oh well. No worries. Carry on people.

I mean either love is a higher form or it isn't love. Bit ambiguous the way I said it.

Interesting comments. In that case, a true conqueror doesn't perceive themselves to be a conqueror at all. As far as kindness and justice, I agree it is deeper, and it speaks to the ability of seeing ourselves and others as human beings, all of us needing guidance. As far as higher forms of love, one could argue love, by definition, is a higher form, or it isn't. But the word love itself gets used to mean many many different things. And back to the poem at hand, I'm wondering whether the point is not the conditional, but that if the conditional holds true, then forgetting is easy. And then I think I'm wrong, because I can clearly see the if-then-else structure. And here, I shall stop. :)

Then there's the love of a true conqueror for his subjects. Are we to treat prisoners of war with kindness and justice simply out of tradition? I think it's deeper than that.. It's having a form of love for your enemies in that they are your potential brethren and only enemies out of ignorance.

Higher forms of love need no reciprocity. Examples include Allah's love for his creatures, some of which cannot even fathom the concept and the love of parents for their babies.

One could argue that love isn't conditional. The conditional though is fully expressed in this poem.

now that you've got me thinking about this, i can't decide if i prefer to think of love as an absolute objective truth or the product of conditional affection. at first i thought i preferred the first scenario because in the second love seems to be based on such unstable ground. but i'm not so sure now. the conditionality adds something, it makes it more interactive, i guess more of a relationship.

mahagabeen, well put. i guess we tend to think of love as existing in a vacuum. but the aspect of subjectivity or as you put it reciprocity is necessarily a part of any relationship.

Mahagabeen, I think you're right on the money! There's no caving in involved, it's a conditional: if you love me, then I'll love you. If not, then whether it's a slow forgetting, or a sudden forgetting on your part, I'll forget you too. In other words, if the connection between us is transient, then my roots will set sail for another shore. Making this poem any tougher would actually lead to, even if you do love me, I won't stick around.
The other poem "Tonight I can write" conveys a completely different emotion, where the conditional is irrelevant, and the process of forgetting someone after you've loved them is difficult.

I LOVE that he caves in at the end. It goes back to that line from "Tonight I Can Write": "Love is so short, forgetting is so long." As much as he's trying to restrain his feelings and be pragmatic about the situation, he simply can't be anything but governed by this woman's whims.

Yeah I actually wish he was strong through the whole thing. I like the tough love aspect of if you forget me then I'm long gone. Wish he didn't cave in.

i actually don't like this one. the "i will survive" turn in the middle puts me off.(am i allowed to say that in this village... let the stoning commence.)

My favorite part is: If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you.

One of my favorites :)

can anyone recommend links to his poetry?

Village Journals Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.

If You Forget Me

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Village Journals

Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.