DON'T GO FAR OFF, NOT EVEN FOR A DAY

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda...my inspiration...he speaks my life...

If You Forget Me


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.


---
Simple words...
: >

Who Dies? by Pablo Neruda

Dies slowly he who transforms himself into a slave of habit,
repeating every day the same routines,
who does not change brands,
does not risk wearing a new color, nor talking to those he doesn't know.
Dies slowly he who makes television his guru.
Dies slowly he who avoids a passion,
who prefers black to white
and the dots on the "i" to a whirlpool of emotions,
Dies slowly he who does not overthrow the table when unhappy at work,
who does not risk the certain for the uncertain
to go toward the dream that is keeping him awake.
Who does not, at least once in life, flee from sound thinking.
Dies slowly he who does not travel, does not read,
does not listen to music, who does not find grace in himself.
Dies slowly he who destroys his self love,
who does not accept help from another.
Dies slowly he who passes his days complaining of his bad luck or the incessant rain.
Dies slowly he who abandons a project before starting it,
who does not ask about a subject he does not know
or who does not answer when being asked about something he does know.
Dies slowly he who does not share his emotions, joys and sadness,
who does not trust, who does not even try.
Dies slowly he who does not intend excelling,
who does not learn from the stones on the road of life,
who does not love and let somebody love him.
Let's avoid death in soft quotes,
remembering always that to be alive demands an effort much bigger
that the simple fact of breathing.

Oh, my. I am overwhelmed. Thank you everyone for posting these poems! Neruda is my favorite poet of all time.

And just in case you want to listen to the poem here it is, narrated by the singer Madonna. I love it
IF YOU FORGET ME (narrated by Madonna)

Puesto para mi,tambien)))por favor
Mi favourito pero
prefiero Pablo Neruda en espanol)))

Poem # 20
Twenty Love Poems: And a Song of Despair

Tonight I Can Write
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, "The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance."
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
Pablo Neruda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BFaNDesLSw&feature=related