hope

In much of Borges poetry there is the sense of eternal prescence. Not prescence with a capital as of some specific or particular entity. The prescence of being present. We know how we came, we know how we will end, what we do not know for certain in how we are from moment to moment. But we can imagine. Or we can know that we do not know.

Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf

At various times I have asked myself what reasons

moved me to study while my night came down,

without particular hope of satisfaction,

the language of the blunt tongued Anglo-Saxons.

Used up by the years my memory

loses its grip on words that I have vainly

repeated and repeated. My life in the same way

weaves and unweaves its weary history.

Then I tell myself: it must be that the soul

has some secret sufficient way of knowing

that it is immortal, that its vast encompassing

circle can take in all, accomplish all.

Beyond my anxiety and beyond this writing

the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.

(1964)

***

A veces me pregunto que razones

Me mueven a estudiar sin esperanza

De precision, mientras mi noche avanza,

La lengua de los asperos sajones.

Gastada por los anos la memoria

Deja caer la en vano repetida

Palabra y es asi como mi vida

Teje y desteje su cansada historia.

Sera (me digo entonces) que de un modo

Secreto y suficiente el alama sabe

Que es immortal y que su vasto y grave

Circulo abarca todo y puede todo.

Mas alla de este afan y de este verso

Me aguarda inagotable el universo.

(1964)