everything carries me to you

May 29: mordant

If I could only just have everything that I wish for, I probably wouldn't seem to be so mordant.

---

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 every day,
every hour
you feel that you are destined for me...
oh my love, oh my own,
all that fire endures in me still,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten.

[Pablo Neruda, 'If You Forget Me', from To Hell with Love]