After Borges

1. To a minor poet

Where are the days you spent on earth,
all the joy and anguish
that were your universe?

The river of years has washed them away;
now you survive
as an entry in the index.

Proudly they gather, the gods’ gifts, immortal.
Of you, dark friend, all we know
is that one evening you heard the nightingale.

Walking fields of asphodels, your slighted shade
must think the gods harsh
but the days are a tangle of paltry needs

and is there really a blessing richer
than the ash of which oblivion’s made?
For others the gods kindled

a persistent light: see
how it shines in every crevice, finds every flaw
and in the end shrivels the rose it treasures.

They were kinder to you, brother, passing you by,
leaving you to the nightingale in the garden
in the thrill of a dusk which will never darken.

2. To whoever is reading me

You’re untouchable. Haven’t they told you,
the powers that control your every move,
that dust is certain? Or did you imagine
your stepping into it could slow the river?

The slab has been ordered, you won’t
be reading it. Date, time and place
already inscribed, a well-judged epitaph.
And not just you – everyone else is a dream
of time, neither deathless bronze nor shining gold.

The universe like you is a shifting stream.
You’ll be a dark shade walking
to promised darkness, the route is fixed.
In a sense, you could say, you’re already dead.

3. Everness

There’s only one thing that doesn’t exist – oblivion.
God, who saves the metal, hoards the dross
and files in his prophetic memory
moons yet to shine with those long gone.
Everything is there. Every reflection
from dawn to dusk you left behind in mirror
after mirror, and every face you’ll go on leaving.
And everything is fixed in its place
in the eternal memory of the universe.
Corridors like labyrinths, the sound of doors
endlessly closing. . . but only
from the other side of the setting sun,
should you ever get there,
will you see the archetypes and the splendours.

Dead Poets' Society

Jorge Luis Borges

To a minor poet of the anthology

Where are the days
that were yours on earth, that mingled
joy and sorrow and were the universe for you?

The river of years
has lost them; you’re a word in an index.

The gods gave others immortal fame:
of you, dark friend, all we know
is that one evening you heard the nightingale.

Among the asphodels of the underworld
your proud shade
might think the gods harsh.

But the days are a tangle of paltry needs
and is there a blessing richer than the ash
of which oblivion’s made?

For others the gods kindled
the relentless light of fame, which pokes in every crevice
and finds out every flaw,
fame which ends up shrivelling
the rose it treasures.

They were kinder to you, brother:
in the ecstasy of a dusk which will never darken
you listen still to Theocritus’s nightingale.


'The river of years' is a bit of a shortcut, translation by omission. The original is 'El río numerable de los años' but I couldn't think what to do with 'numerable'. W.S. Merwin, in his version of this poem, translates those lines as

The river of years has lost them
from its numbered current

which is one way. He also translates the title, which in Spanish is 'A un poeta menor de la antología' as 'To a Minor Poet of the Greek Anthology', which is no doubt what Borges was referring to. I left it non-specific. It might as well be The Penguin Book of Hittite or Irish Verse. Anyway, I liked the poem. Reminds me too of Wilbur's 'To the Etruscan Poets':

Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young
Took with your mother's milk the mother tongue,

In which pure matrix, joining world and mind,
You strove to leave some line of verse behind

Like still fresh tracks across a field of snow,
Not reckoning that all could melt and go.