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Thursday 29 December 2016

Jorge Luis Borges: The possession of yesterday (No paradises that have not been lost) / Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga (el zopilote): Nubes / Clouds

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Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

Jorge Luis Borges: Posesión de ayer

Sé que he perdido tantas cosas que no podría contarlas y que esas perdiciones, ahora, son lo que es mío. Sé que he perdido el amarillo y el negro y pienso en esos imposibles colores como no piensan los que ven. Mi padre ha muerto y está siempre a mi lado. Cuando quiero escandir versos de Swinburne, lo hago, me dicen, con su voz. Sólo el que ha muerto es nuestro, sólo es nuestro lo que perdimos. llión fue, pero llión perdura en el hexámetro que la plañe. Israel fue cuando era una antigua nostalgia. Todo poema, con el tiempo, es una elegía. Nuestras son las mujeres que nos dejaron, ya no sujetos a la víspera, que es zozobra, y a las alarmas y terrores de la esperanza. No hay otros paraísos que los paraísos perdidos.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986): Posesión de ayer, from Los conjurados (1985)

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Bachechi Open Space, Bernalillo County, New Mexico photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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Bachechi Open Space, Bernalillo County, New Mexico photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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Bachechi Open Space, Bernalillo County, New Mexico photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, December 2016

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West Mesa, Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, August 2016

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West Mesa, Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, August 2016

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West Mesa, Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, August 2016

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Carrizozo, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, September 2016

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Carrizozo, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, September 2016

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Carrizozo, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, September 2016

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Bernalillo, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, August 2016

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Bernalillo, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, August 2016

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Bernalillo, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, August 2016

Muhammed Muheisen: Refugee camps in Greece

Daily life in the refugee camps of Greece

A Syrian refugee woman walks back to her shelter carrying bags of food at the refugee camp of Ritsona about 86 kilometers (53 miles) north of Athens, Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016. Over 62,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece after a series of Balkan border closures and a European Union deal with Turkey to stop migrant flows.: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images @AP_Images, 28 December 2016  

A Syrian refugee woman walks back to her shelter carrying bags of food at the refugee camp of Ritsona about 86 kilometers (53 miles) north of Athens, Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016.  (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

A Syrian refugee woman walks back to her shelter carrying bags of food at the refugee camp of Ritsona about 86 kilometers (53 miles) north of Athens, Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016. Over 62,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece after a series of Balkan border closures and a European Union deal with Turkey to stop migrant flows.: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images @AP_Images, 28 December 2016



A Syrian refugee woman walks back to her shelter carrying bags of food at the refugee camp of Ritsona about 86 kilometers (53 miles) north of Athens, Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016. Over 62,000 refugees and migrants are stranded in Greece after a series of Balkan border closures and a European Union deal with Turkey to stop migrant flows.: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images @AP_Images, 28 December 2016

Afghan refugee Setayesh Hassan, 5, sits around a table after eating her lunch at the refugee camp of Oinofyta, about 58 kilometers (36 miles) north of Athens, Monday, Dec. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Afghan refugee Setayesh Hassan, 5, sits around a table after eating her lunch at the refugee camp of Oinofyta, about 58 kilometers (36 miles) north of Athens, Monday, Dec. 26, 2016.: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via AP Images @AP_Images, 28 December 2016 

3 comments:

TC said...

Our friend and mentor Hazen Walker informs us that he has once again been foiled by the Machine. To Hazen and to anyone who has encountered similar difficulties, my sincere apologies. In case it helps any, Google does the same thing to me, every time. Funny thing is, they have managed over the years to find this blog quite useful in several of those ways Google finds things useful -- that is, any way that profits them.

In any case, as Hazen, whose Spanish is quite good, has contributed a translation of the Borges piece that gives this post half its title, I'm going to break my own silly rule and for once, put up a back channel comment, verbatim.

"Great, great post. My apologies, but I still can’t get the goddamn Google to go. And I tried, man did I try. A big Error 400 is holding everything up when I try to post my comment. Anyway . . .

"Borges provides a needed perspective on the end of a year of many losses. The photos by Lizárraga are just the medicine too. His photographs are the quiet we could use. Los dos Jorges make a good combination. Thanks.

"Here’s my translation of Posesión del Ayer.

"I know that I have lost so many things that I will never be able to find them, and that those losses, now, are what is mine. I know that I have lost the yellow and the black, and I think about those impossible colors like I never think about those I see. My father has died and yet is always at my side. When I want to scan verses by Swinburne, I do it, they tell me, in his voice. Only that which has died is ours, only ours that which we lost. Ilium was, now Ilium endures in the hexameter that you mourn. Israel was, when there existed an antique nostalgia. Every poem, with time, is an elegy. Ours are the women who left us, no longer subject to an evening that is sinking, to the alarms and terrors of hope. There are no other paradises than paradises lost."

Unknown said...

Hi Tom—
Three things: (1) It’s been a great pleasure to follow your blog. I’m glad you’re doing this. (2) I’m wrapping up an essay, under contract and due tomorrow, but it’s always 50-50 on its publication. If published, I’m going to seek a “For Tom Clark” dedication line. Is that OK with you? This line is in the piece: “A stone’s throw downstream a great blue heron took bent-neck flight.” (3) I was so taken with this 29 DECEMBER 2016 post that I note Borges’ “The Possession of Yesterday” poem, and use the last line in both Spanish and English, thusly:

The final line in the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ poem, “Posesión de Ayer” reads, “No hay otros paraísos que los paraísos perdidos.”
There are no other paradises than the lost paradises.

I’m not sure if I need permission for the Borges lines or not, but I do want you to know. I can send you the whole piece (2,100 words and falling) if you’d like to see it. Still tinkering. It concerns threats and risks to fish and fishing in Montana.
Best to you and yours for the New Year,
Tom

TC said...

Tom,

1 The pleasure, mine

2 The dedication, an honour

3 No worries

Very happy new year to you & yours, swell to be in touch again after all these degenerative eons. (The degeneration of course also all mine!)