If You Forget Me

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know 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 to 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,
as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving me.

I stumbled upon this poem when I was doing research about this great Chilean poet. While listening to Clint's masterpiece scores from Changeling, I kept on reading this piece over and over again until it came across my mind on how difficult it is for two souls embracing love.

In other event, I finally have seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The movie is stunning. Bolstered by cunningly directed cinematography, the movie has a story about the truth of life to tell.

My name is Harvey Milk, and I am here to recruit you - Milk

Sean Penn, Emile Hirch, Gus Van Sant and James Franco worked together in a film production. What more can I ask for? These amazing people, the artists I admire the most, collaborated together to produce Milk.

It didn't take me much time to look for this movie. Living here out of nowhere in Lafayette, I don't have many choices of movies to see in cinemas as the idea of clustering in Econ370 is not really applied to this town yet. As the overrated Twilight hit cinemas couple weeks ago, it could be said that they show that movie in every hour in every cinemas! So, with the hope of not being disappointed for spending couple bucks to drive down to Indianapolis, me with 2 other climbing buddies watched, a biopic, Milk 2 days ago.

Compared to other political assassinations: John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, Harvey Milk's could be easily lost in this parade of these great dead leaders, in which also being gunned down, along with Mayor George Moscone, in 1978, couple months after being elected as the 1st openly gay man elected to major political office. But, Gus Van Sant, the maker of Elephant, Mala Noche, Paranoid Park, My Own Private Idaho, or the more commercial ones, Good Will Hunting and Finding Foresster, beautifully memorialized Harvey Milk in his recent oeuvre, Milk.

It all begins when Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) was a NYC insurance executive, closeted and clean-cut. On the steps down to the subway he picks up Scott Smith (portrayed with flirtatious charm by a hottie, James Franco - well-known as PeterParker's best friend in Spiderman). Trying to get to a better place where they can be themselves and surrounded by people who accept them as they are, they both moved to Castro, San Francisco's gay village within Eureka Valley. This is where Milk's political and personal life revolved.

I am no lesbians, gays, bisexuals, or transgender activist. Whatever you think about homosexuals (or politicians), you may find the movie worth seeing. Milk, embodied by Sean Penn in an extraordinary and self-effacing performance, takes the same journey of self-discovery that so many ordinary people must.