Beyond Forgetting

Ang Beyond Forgetting, literal na "Lampas sa Paglimot", ay isang tula ng pag-ibig na isinulat ng Pilipinong makatang si Rolando A. Carbonell, isa sa mga "guro" ng panulaang pampag-ibig sa Pilipinas. Inihandog ni Carbonell ang tula ng pagmamahal na ito sa kanyang unang pag-ibig na si Tita Duran.

Panitik

Narito ang sipi ng tula mula sa orihinal na Ingles:

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 beautiful, the once happy world such as ours?

I came because the song that I kept through the years I waiting to be sung. I cannot sing it without you. The song when sung lone 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. For 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 music and memory into one consuming ecstasy. You alone...