Fervor de Buenos Aires - Jorge Luis Borges

Rating: ★★★★
29/02/16

Habré de levantar la vasta vida
que aún ahora es tu espejo:
cada mañana habré de reconstruirla.
(Ausencia)

I shall raise the wide life
that is still your mirror:
each morning I shall rebuild it.
(Absence)

Borges published this book in 1923. It was his first collection of poems, one that would not only represent an ode to the capital's nostalgic beauty, but also his first attempt at dealing with philosophical issues in the land of the uncertain. Of the impossible and the extreme. Lights of different colors; shadows of different shapes. A silent passion and the lyrical tone you would not expect from him. But perhaps you should.

I could relate to those kinds of poems, of course. The rest of them convey a closeness to a place that I would never be able to recognize. A devotion driven by some irresistible force that made everything seem rather foreign to me. However, many poems resonate with different meanings and emotions and thus have become part of my memory.

Inscripción en cualquier Sepulcro

No arriesgue el mármol temerario

gárrulas transgresiones al todopoder del olvido,

enumerando con prolijidad

el nombre, la opinión, los acontecimientos, la patria.

Tanto abalorio bien adjudicado está a la tiniebla

y el mármol no hable lo que callan los hombres.

Lo esencial de la vida fenecida

—la trémula esperanza,

el milagro implacable del dolor y el asombro del goce—

siempre perdurará.

Ciegamente reclama duración el alma arbitraria

cuando la tiene asegurada en vidas ajenas,

cuando tú mismo eres el espejo y la réplica

de quienes no alcanzaron tu tiempo

y otros serán (y son) tu inmortalidad en la tierra.

Inscription on any Tomb

Let not the rash marble risk

garrulous breaches of oblivion’s omnipotence,

in many words recalling

name, renown, events, birthplace.

All those glass jewels are best left in the dark.

Let not the marble say what men do not.

The essentials of the dead man’s life—

the trembling hope,

the implacable miracle of pain, the wonder of sensual delight—

will abide forever.

Blindly the willful soul asks for length of days

when its survival is assured by the lives of others,

when you yourself are the embodied continuance

of those who did not live into your time

and others will be (and are) your immortality on earth.

*

Afterglow

Siempre es conmovedor el ocaso

por indigente o charro que sea,

pero más conmovedor todavía

es aquel brillo desesperado y final

que herrumbra la llanura

cuando el sol último se ha hundido.

Nos duele sostener esa luz tirante y distinta,

esa alucinación que impone al espacio

el unánime miedo de la sombra

y que cesa de golpe

cuando notamos su falsía,

como cesan los sueños

cuando sabemos que soñamos.

Afterglow

Sunset is always disturbing

whether theatrical or muted,

but still more disturbing

is that last desperate glow

that turns the plain to rust

when on the horizon nothing is left

of the pomp and clamor of the setting sun.

How hard holding on to that light, so tautly drawn

and different,

that hallucination which the human fear of the dark

imposes on space

and which ceases at once

the moment we realize its falsity,

the way a dream is broken

the moment the sleeper knows he is dreaming.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.