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
Ahh my love, ahh 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a video made from the Italian movie "Il Postino", starring Massimo Troisi and Philippe Noiret. The background music is a poem by Pablo Neruda read by Andy García, called "Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines".
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
*more poetry 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
Ahh my love, ahh 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
*more poetry by Pablo Neruda*
