Beyond Forgetting

Rolando A. Carbonell, PhD. has received several awards worldwide for his poems and published 5,000 haikus and 101 sonnets. He is the Philippine’s leading love-poet and one of his most popular poems. Is entitled “Beyond Forgetting” The persona describes how difficult it is for him/her to forget his/her beloved and they got separated because the beloved mistook the persona’s silence as indifference. Now, the persona is hoping to get his/her loved one back because only then will things be perfect. This poem is very touching and meaningful to me since it speaks about how powerful true love is and how hard it is to recover and forget a relationship. It also shows, that in a relationship, it is important to express and reaffirm your feelings once in a while.

Jessica Evangelista

BEYOND FORGETTING
Rolando A. Carbonell

For a moment I thought I could forget you.
For a moment I thought I could still the restlessness in my heart. I thought the past could no longer haunt me—nor hurt me. How wrong I was!

For the past, no matter how distant, is as much a part of me as life itself. And you are part of that life. You are so much a part of me—of my dreams, my early hopes, my youth and my ambitions—that in all my tasks I can’t help remembering you. Many little delights and things remind me of you.

Yes, I came. And would my pride mock my real feelings? Would the love song, the sweet and lovely smile on your face, be lost among the deepening shadows?

I have wanted to be alone.
I thought I could make myself forget you in silence and in song...And yet I remembered. For who could forget the memory of the once lovely, the once happy world such as ours?

I came because the song that I kept through the years is waiting to be sung. I cannot sing it without you. The song when sung alone will lose the essence of its tune, because you and I had been one.

I have wanted this misery to end, because it is part of my restlessness. Can’t you understand? Can’t you divine the depth and the tenderness of my feelings towards you? Yes, can’t you see how I suffer in this even darkness without you?

You went away because you mistook my silence for indifference. But silence, my dear, is the language of my heart. How could I essay the intensity of my love when silence speaks a more eloquent tone? But, perhaps, you didn’t understand...

Remember, I came because the gnawing loneliness is there and will not be lost until the music is sung, until the poem is heard, until the silence is understood....until you come to me again.

For you alone can blend the music and memory into one consuming ecstasy. You alone...


Source: http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/carbonell_poems.html