If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I chanced upon this poem tonight. I love the feeling while you are reading a piece of poetry and each word strums across your heart strings, bringing you into better harmony with yourself, making you grateful those words were written and expressing what you didn't know you were feeling. That's what I felt when I read this poem. Thank you Pablo Neruda, for writing poetry, and bringing people to acknowledge what is in their heart.

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 

Words

“Words, so innocent and powerless…when standing in a dictionary, how potent for good or evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American Novelist
Words hold incredible sway over the human soul and heart. Some say actions speak louder than words, but there are words that make the heart soar, or break it into a million unidentifiable pieces. They can help us convey the ideas and thoughts of our minds, or lead us to experience great humiliation from misuse. A few precious and simple words whispered at the right moment can be the foundation of some our most deep and defining relationships, while they can also push away and trap those who use to mean so much to us. The absence of words can also have an incredible impact. When you just know the world will be ok once again if you simply hear those few words, but if they are omitted or simply forgotten, you become filled with a disappointment that reaches your core and you begin to lose hope of ever hearing those words again. Sometimes it doesn't even matter what the words say, as long as they exist. You can spend weeks fretting and being anxious, but the moment you hold a piece of paper with his words scribbled all over it, your heart suddenly feels ok again. It's kind of silly when you think about it. They're just words. So much of our happiness shouldn't be contingent on whether they are present or absent. But realizing this, I hope I can say the words that need to be heard, and keep back the ones that should remain unspoken, and thank those precious few in my life that know the power of words and how to speak to my heart to keep it pumping and loving and producing angsty but meaningful (to me) blog posts.