my best valentine's day effort.

This year, it's Valentine's-Schmalentine's... but I thought I'd post my favorite poem so that I'm not a total chump today.

If You Forget Me 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,
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.