IF YOU FORGET ME

If you forget me

(The verses of the captain)

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, or little boats

that sail towards 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 at long and mad the wind banners that passes through my life

and you decide to leave me

at the shore of the heart where I have roots,

remember than 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 in will be in your arms without leaving mine.

................