Happy Valentine's Day

Something outside of class for a while, to commemorate Valentine's Day. Back in my JC days, my lit tutor played the video of Il Postino for Lit instead of conducting class, a 1994 Italian film about the unlikely friendship between renowned poet Chilean Pablo Neruda, who becomes exiled in a small Italian village for his Communist beliefs, and an Italian postman. The film is essentially about poetry and friendship. Here are some clips from the film:

Did anyone catch the literary allusion?

(Towards the end of the film, when Pablo Neruda leaves the village)


And here's one of Neruda's poems (translated):

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

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.