pith & periphery

by Robert Frost

If You Forget Me

Pablo Neruda ((1904-1973) - Chilean Poet.

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 it

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,

I’ll have forgotten you before I even realize it.

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.

by Robert Frost