{"id":34633,"date":"2025-11-19T22:02:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/if-you-forget-me-pablo-nerudas-staggering-unbreakup-poem\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T22:02:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:02:31","slug":"if-you-forget-me-pablo-nerudas-staggering-unbreakup-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/if-you-forget-me-pablo-nerudas-staggering-unbreakup-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Forget Me: Pablo Neruda\u2019s Staggering (Un)breakup Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"If<\/a><\/p>\n

Love is a fire that takes two to keep burning, but one to extinguish \u2014 if the hearth of either heart is too damp with doubt, both wake up one day to find their hands cupping ashes. And yet when two people have loved each other and parted, the fire is forever embering between them, however great the distance in space, in time, in thought. The wind of a single word and the gust of the smallest gesture can rekindle it in a flash, often to the surprise of both. All true love is a smoking spell against forgetting. <\/p>\n

That is the aspect of love I feel burning through \u201cIf You Forget Me\u201d by Pablo Neruda<\/a> (July 12, 1904\u2013September 23, 1973) \u2014 a breakup poem and a poem of unbreaking, one that begins as an ode, twists into an ultimatum, and finally reveals itself to be a lamentation, a hymn of longing, a bittersweet acknowledgement that once a person has entered another\u2019s heart, they always have a place in it, but also a recognition of how they ought to show up in order to honor that place. <\/p>\n

That, at least, is how I receive this poem, at this particular point in my life \u2014 for, as the teenage Sylvia Plath wrote to her mother<\/a>, \u201cOnce a poem is made available to the public, the right of interpretation belongs to the reader.\u201d It is read here by two dear friends a generation apart \u2014 Karen Maldonado<\/a> in Spanish and Rose Hanzlik<\/a> in English, as translated by Donald Devenish Walsh in the bilingual pocket-sized collection of immensities Love Poems<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>). It is a poem that warrants as accompaniment nothing less than Bach\u2019s transcendent Cello Suite No. 1<\/em>, performed by none other than the great Spanish cellist Pablo Casals<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

\n

IF YOU FORGET ME<\/strong>
\nby Pablo Neruda<\/em><\/p>\n

I want you to know
\none thing.<\/p>\n

You know how this is:
\nif I look
\nat the crystal moon, at the red branch
\nof the slow autumn at my window,
\nif I touch
\nnear the fire
\nthe impalpable ash
\nor the wrinkled body of the log,
\neverything carries me to you,
\nas if everything that exists,
\naromas, light, metals,
\nwere little boats that sail
\ntoward those isles of yours that wait for me.<\/p>\n

Well, now,
\nif little by little you stop loving me
\nI shall stop loving you little by little.<\/p>\n

If suddenly you forget me
\ndo not look for me,
\nfor I shall already have forgotten you.<\/p>\n

If you think it long and mad,
\nthe wind of banners
\nthat passes through my life,
\nand you decide
\nto leave me at the shore
\nof the heart where I have roots,
\nremember
\nthat on that day,
\nat that hour,
\nI shall lift my arms
\nand my roots will set off
\nto seek another land.<\/p>\n

But
\nif each day,
\neach hour,
\nyou feel that you are destined for me
\nwith implacable sweetness,
\nif each day a flower
\nclimbs up to your lips to seek me,
\nah my love, ah my own,
\nin me all that fire is repeated,
\nin me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
\nmy love feeds on your love, beloved,
\nand as long as you live it will be in your arms
\nwithout leaving mine.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

SI T\u00da ME OLVIDAS<\/strong>
\nPablo Neruda<\/em><\/p>\n

Quiero que sepas
\nuna cosa.<\/p>\n

T\u00fa sabes c\u00f3mo es esto:
\nsi miro
\nla luna de cristal, la rama roja
\ndel lento oto\u00f1o en mi ventana,
\nsi toco
\njunto al fuego
\nla impalpable ceniza
\no el arrugado cuerpo de la le\u00f1a,
\ntodo me lleva a ti,
\ncomo si todo lo que existe,
\naromas, luz, metales,
\nfueran peque\u00f1os barcos que navegan
\nhacia las islas tuyas que me aguardan.<\/p>\n

Ahora bien,
\nsi poco a poco dejas de quererme
\ndejar\u00e9 de quererte poco a poco.<\/p>\n

Si de pronto
\nme olvidas
\nno me busques,
\nque ya te habr\u00e9 olvidado.<\/p>\n

Si consideras largo y loco
\nel viento de banderas
\nque pasa por mi vida
\ny te decides
\na dejarme a la orilla
\ndel coraz\u00f3n en que tengo ra\u00edces,
\npiensa
\nque en ese d\u00eda,
\na esa hora
\nlevantar\u00e9 los brazos
\ny saldr\u00e1n mis ra\u00edces
\na buscar otra tierra.<\/p>\n

Pero
\nsi cada d\u00eda,
\ncada hora
\nsientes que a m\u00ed est\u00e1s destinada
\ncon dulzura implacable.
\nSi cada d\u00eda sube
\nuna flor a tus labios a buscarme,
\nay amor m\u00edo, ay m\u00eda,
\nen m\u00ed todo ese fuego se repite,
\nen m\u00ed nada se apaga ni se olvida,
\nmi amor se nutre de tu amor, amada,
\ny mientras vivas estar\u00e1 en tus brazos
\nsin salir de los m\u00edos.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For a kindred counterpart from a very different kind of poet, savor David Whyte\u2019s \u201cThe Truelove,\u201d<\/a> then revisit Neruda\u2019s love letter to language<\/a>, his ode to silence<\/a>, and his moving Nobel Prize acceptance speech<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

donating = loving<\/h3>\n

For seventeen years, I have been spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each month composing The Marginalian<\/em> (which bore the outgrown name Brain Pickings<\/em><\/a> for its first fifteen years). It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, no assistant \u2014 a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider lending a helping hand with a donation<\/a>. Your support makes all the difference.<\/p>\n

\n

newsletter<\/h3>\n

The Marginalian<\/em> has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week\u2019s most inspiring reading. Here\u2019s what to expect<\/a>. Like? Sign up.<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love is a fire that takes two to keep burning, but one to extinguish \u2014 if the hearth of either heart is too damp with doubt, both wake up one day to find their hands cupping ashes. And yet when two people have loved each other and parted, the fire is forever embering between them, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-life"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 16:25:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}