The poems of Chilean poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Pablo Neruda are often read at weddings. He wrote many sonnets and his love poems translated from the Spanish are exceptionally lovely. Listen to this audio reading of his poem
If You Forget Me
The love connection can be stretched by distance, commitments, work and circumstances.
The important thing says Neruda is to remember. Don't forget your great love. The memories are found everywhere: in the light of the sun behind the mountain, in the changing shape of the river, in the blue flowers or the rose (see Sonnet XVIII).
Love outlasts anything that can be bought with money. After years of internal longing, love emerges like a deeply rooted tree. The branches of that tree are precious and like hands reach out to touch us. No matter how high the mountains or how deep the valley, the intensity of love endures.
Sonnet XVIII
Through mountains you move as moves the breeze
or as the sudden stream from under snow
or your hair flaring, yes, flickering,
the high banners of an enraptured sun.
All the light of the Caucasus falls over your body
whirling like liquid in a bowl
in which the water changes shape and song
as with the river’s every open move.
Through the mountain flows the old warrior’s road
and below –shining fiercely like a sword–
the water, between the walls of the valley’s hands
until you receive from the forests, suddenly,
the branch of lightning, stroke of blue flowers,
the precious arrow of the forest’s smell.
by Pablo Neruda
