Rated
Nov 18 2008
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3 reviews
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poetry, borges
• ncsu.edu
Borges' Poem
by Raúl Deustua
To have seen Buenos Aires grow, grow and decline.
To recall the patio of earth and the vine, the entrance and the cistern.
To have inherited English, to have investigated Saxon.
To profess the love of German and nostalgia for Latin.
To have conversed in Palermo with an old murderer.
To take pleasure in chess and the jasmine, tigers and the hexameter.
To read Macedonio Fernández in his own voice.
To know the illustrious uncertainties that are metaphysics.
To have honoured swords and wished for peace reasonably.
Not to be greedy of islands.
Not to have left my library.
To be Alonso Quijano and not dare to be Don Quijote.
To have taught what I don't know to those who will know more than I.
To be thankful for the gifts of the moon and Paul Verlaine.
To have crafted some hendecasyllables.
To have once more told some ancient tales.
To have deciphered in the dialect of our time five or six metaphors.
To have eluded bribes.
To be a citizen of Geneva, Montevideo, Austin and (as all men) Rome.
To be a devotee of Conrad.
To be what no one can define: an Argentinian.
To be blind.
None of these things is strange and their conjunction offers me a fame I can't fully comprehend.