Credit: Pablo Neruda Letterpress Print by Miss Cline Press
Some say love is just greed. Love is
just a selfish feelings for not being alone and wanting to be love wholly.
Pablo Neruda’s poem entitled “If You Forget Me” may conveys those statements
through its metaphors and words choices. Neruda is famous for his melancholy
love poems, but despite that he who was also a politician had made some poems
regarding many aspects. There are many contrary about this poem’s meaning between
love and politics. But, maybe it has dual meanings, and in this case we will
see it through the love topics by its romantic and dramatic stanzas. The
poem is about someone, the “I”, who tells his/her lover about their feeling and
wanting to emphasize about one thing. Neruda takes us to a deeper thought about
the universal and relatable feeling of love, and telling it through his flowery
metaphors and words which may also conveys the two statements above.
What is love and how is it works? Before
going to the main point, Neruda shows that actually it’s a simple yet
complicated thing that everyone can easily tell. “You know how this is:”
(Stanza 2). Implying that everyone knows how it will goes, and may be relatable
to everyone, especially who has ever been in love. Through his flowery words,
Neruda starts telling how’s love works. “If I touch near the fire the
impalpable ash or the wrinkle body of the log” (Stanza 6-9). The fire implies
to the passion of love, hot and restless, meanwhile the ash and log are more
about the feeling. Ash is impalpable
which means it’s the result of the passionate love, everything will and may be
gone slowly just like the ash. But, there’s a log which is implying the
feelings from both people that can refresh the love and keep it burning so it
won’t die, and that’s how the love works.
Then, he shows how someone is in love.
“Everything carries me to you as if everything that exists, aromas, light,
metals”. (Stanza 10-15). It shows that if someone falls in love, the
surroundings, everything that we think, in the end will be about that person. It
uses of parabole of the word “everything”, because usually love makes people
crazy and nonsense, everything other than that other person won’t be important.
We can note that the use of words such as aromas, light, and metals, which are
some earth’s elements relate to the feeling of love as a nature phenomena, a
natural feelings of human. He also shows how beautiful is this feeling. “ If I
look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window”.
(Stanza 4-5). The additions of crystal before the moon, shows how if someone
falls in love everything becomes beautiful and romantic. The description of
slow autumn with the fireplace from the stanza before shows how calm and warm
the feeling of love is. “The next stanza continues what’s someone hoping in
love. “Were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me”.
(Stanza 13-15). It also shows that the struggle of someone, so the feeling can
be recognizes by that other person. “Those isles of yours” represents the other
person’s heart which this someone assumes he/she is waiting and also has the
same feeling. It can be also relatable to everyone, because if we fall in love,
we want that person to have a feeling for us too. Finally, Neruda stirs that
feeling into a somehow threatening situation. “Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop
loving you little by little”. (Stanza 16-18). After Neruda shows how someone
falls in love happily, the uses of “well, now” emphasize that even though it’s
a sincere feeling, there still a “but” in it. It seems that actually there’s
something hidden in it, which is the feeling of wanting to accepting it back,
so it’s not completely sincere. But, actually it shoudn’t be too shocking,
because from the very first Neruda has been giving us some hints. If we’ve been
aware from the title of this poem “If You Forget Me”, actually it relates to
the very first stanza which says, “I want you to know one thing”. It may be a
hint into this poem’s meaning. The sentences in that first stanza may makes
people wondering what is that “one thing” actually, but now we can see it as
what will happen if I forget you, which is sounds threatening. After that,
Neruda explains more about what will happen in stanzas 26-31, “and you decide
to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that
day, on that hour”, which imply to how’s love works as a personal thing. The
uses of the word “remember” emphasize the point, which as its mentioned before
as somehow threatening. The stanza “that on that day, on that hour”, also
emphasizes that it’s not just a simple thing, but a real serious thing, a real
warning if the other person forgets about him/her. From the beginning, Neruda
has been using the metaphors such as isles, boats, sails, and now shore, to
tells about the feelings between two people. So, this stanzas simply explains what’s
going to happen if the other person’s decides to leave this someone, regardless
of his/her heart which has been sincere to love, as for the metaphor “roots”.
Then, “I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land”
(Stanza 32-34). My arms and my roots are this someone’s feelings toward the
other person, and “will seek another land” as the word “land” that implies the
heart, so no matter what happens if a person between those two people won’t
have the feeling equally, then it won’t work. The word “shall” then implies, so
why bother and try hard if it won’t works anyway. The last part of stanzas,
also shows the other conditions, “But, if each day, each hour, you feel that
you are destined for me”(Stanza 35-38) “In me all that fire is repeated, in me
nothing is extinguished or forgotten” (Stanza 43-44). Neruda uses the
metaphor “fire” for love since the beginning, so it means that if the other
person realizes for returning the love equally, this someone will love her/him
again like before, as if nothing has happened. The stanzas 40-41, “If each day
a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me”, shows how if the other person
realize the need of this feeling through beautiful metaphors, again to show how
actually love is a beautiful natural feeling of a human. Until the very last,
Neruda explains why is this someone have this one thing if the other person forgets
about him/her, which is the main point of this poem. “Oh my love, ah my own”.
(Stanza 42). This stanza is telling that love is must be returns equally, by
the word “my own” Neruda may also agrees to the statement “love is greed” because
it may be implies the selfishness of love. It seems like saying my love is my
own feeling, but your feeling towards me will also be my love. Neruda then
tells us the general reason through stanza: “My love feeds on your love,
beloved”. (Stanza 45). Which is actually that one thing is about, every love is
based on another’s love, and that’s how love works as a feeling and surely
relationship. To balance the passions of love, it must be returns equally
because it “feeds” one another, such as the “log” from the previous stanza. From
the very beginning of the poem, Neruda tells about what is love, how is it
feels, and how is it works, and in the end shows what is the actual one
important thing, which also in touch with the statement “love is greed”.
Neruda successfully tells about the
feeling of love through some easy yet romantic metaphors, and even make the
readers can also feel and recall that feeling. He shows love as a natural and
beautiful feeling by using nature elements as metaphors. It’s a simple yet
meaningful poem, and tells about what seems like a simple feeling, but actually
much more complicated than whats on the surface. At the end, maybe not as a
whole meaning, but it seems that Neruda agrees to the statement that
love is also a selfish feeling, because actually that’s how it works.
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