The Field Guide

Susan: "Why are you so driven to write?"

The beautiful and talented Matthew Rhys reciting a verse from If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda for the short film Everything Carries Me to You (2011). Score by Reg B.

If You Forget Me (Si Tu Me Olvidas) 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 towards 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.