The Art of Poetry
To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
~ Jorge Luis Borges
(1899 ~ 1986)
Borges, at the age of three
The younger Borges
Borges visiting the Galleria Nazionale, Palermo (Italy) in 1984
(Photograph : Ferdinando Scianna)
The knowledge of life lies in understanding death and vice-versa. If we can see death as just a dream, there is nothing like it. Then all our fears and anxities vanish in split second. Then we live life fully and completely. Then we have the capacity to bear sorrow, insults and numerous sufferings without complaints. Then we do not carried away by all the joys which life gives us. Then life actually turns in a river bringing in its wake fury, flood as well as water which is nothing but nectar of life. Then we enjoy the river in its entirety.
ReplyDeleteIf we have not yet increased our capacity to consider death as just a dream, it would help to know that death, despite being the most fearful is the most benevolent also. When we are diseased and old and can not carry the burden of the body any more, the death is our only saviour. When we become incapable of ending our attachments, who else but death would be of help. We spent a life time in beggarliness. Who else but death will relieve us of our beggary. When the weight of ego, memory, knowledge, information becomes too much, then death helps. There is no one who imparts justice like Yama does. The kindness of death knows no bounds. Hats off to YAMA.