Thursday 17 May 2007

a poem, is a poem, is a poem

The Art of Poetry - Jorge Luis Borges

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.



In memory of Audrey's Mum.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh....

Anonymous said...

really sad..and such a young woman.
delphine

Luli said...

She was very young. I'm sending all my thoughts to her family.

audrey said...

Luli, sorry I'm just catching up on the last week of your blog now.

Thankyou for posting that beautiful poem. I'm now listening to "Somewhere over the rainbow" and thinking of my ma - she loved this version of the song too.

It's funny - I have the strangest image of her now. Whenever I think of her, I see her on her wedding day. I think that might be how she looks now, dancing outside amongst the roses and kissing our cheeks with the sun.

Luli said...

Hi Audrey, I remember reading that your Mum was Argentinian, and Jorge Borges was an Argentinian poet. I love that poem.

Your Ma looks so beautiful wrapped up in your Dad's arms. Sending loads of happy thoughts your way. : )