My Love, If I Die
My Love, If I Die - context Summary
From Cien Sonetos De Amor
This poem appears in Pablo Neruda's 1959 collection Cien sonetos de amor, dedicated to Matilde Urrutia. It addresses a beloved with calm hypotheticals about surviving the other's death, asking against magnifying grief and emphasizing the limited, shared space of their life together. The speaker reframes love as continuous and unbounded by birth or death, likening it to a river that changes course but persists. Placed within the sonnet cycle, the poem contributes to the book's sustained meditation on intimate, lasting devotion rather than dramatic loss.
Read Complete AnalysesMy love, if I die and you don't; My love, if you die and I don't; Let's not give grief an even greater field. No expanse is greater than where we live. Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts, time, wandering water, the vague wind swept us like sailing seeds. We might not have found one another in time. This meadow where we find ourselves, O little infinity! we give it back. But Love, this love has not ended: just as it never had a birth, it has no death: it is like a long river, only changing lands, and changing lips.
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