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Saturday 31 December 2016

Jorge Luis Borges: Sábados / Saturdays

 

#December light in #LA is great. Time flies as the #sun goes down on 2016. #NewYear is here.: image via luis sinco @luissinco, 27 December 2016
Jorge Luis Borges: Sábados

A C.G.

Afuera hay un ocaso, alhaja oscura
engastada en el tiempo,
y una honda ciudad ciega
de hombres que no te vieron.
La tarde calla o canta.
Alguien descrucifica los anhelos
clavados en el piano.
Siempre, la multitud de tu hermosura.

***

A despecho de tu desamor
tu hermosura
prodiga su milagro por el tiempo.
Está en ti la ventura
como la primavera en la hoja nueva.
Ya casi no soy nadie,
soy tan sólo ese anhelo
que se pierde en la tarde.
En ti está la delicia
como está la crueldad en las espadas.

***

Agravando la reja está la noche.
En la sala severa
se buscan como ciegos nuestras dos soledades.
Sobrevive a la tarde
la blancura gloriosa de tu carne.
En nuestro amor hay una pena
que se parece al alma.

***


que ayer sólo eras toda la hermosura
eres también todo el amor, ahora.


Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986): Sábados, from Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923)




 Sun slips between the clouds to illuminate downtown #losangeles as seen from the #BaldwinHillsScenicOverlook Thursday, Dec. 29, 2016. #DTLA: image via Genaro Molina @GenaroMolina47, 29 December 2016 

Saturdays

Outside, a sunset, a dark jewel mounted in time, and there is a city out there, a low blind city of men who never saw you. Evening hushes or sings out. Someone is lifting down from the cross the longings driven into the piano. And always, the multitude of your beauty.

Despite your coldness your beauty scatters its wonders across the years. In you lies fortune, as in the new leaf, spring. Now I am almost no one, I am barely that longing that fades away in the dusk. Pleasure lies in you as cruelty lies in swords.

Night weighs hard on the window grille. In the austere parlor our two blind solitudes grope for each other. The milky whiteness of your flesh outlives the setting sun. There is, in our love, a suffering that comes to resemble the soul.

You who were merely all beauty yesterday today are all love as well.


Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986): Sábados / Saturdays, translated by Robert Mezey and Richard Barnes



An Indian fisherman rows a boat on the river Brahmaputra in Gauhati, India, Dec. 30, 2016. #APPhoto: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 30 December 2016


ROMANIA - A child wearing bear skins takes a rest during a parade to drive away evil spirits of the past year. By @bubulator2 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 30 December 2016

Thonburi | by ADMurr

Thonburi: photo by Andrew Murr, 25 December 2016

Hey ese | by michaelj1998

Hey ese. Los Angeles, Ca.: photo by michaelj1998, 15 November 2016

Hey ese | by michaelj1998

Hey ese. Los Angeles, Ca.: photo by michaelj1998, 15 November 2016

Hey ese | by michaelj1998

Hey ese. Los Angeles, Ca.: photo by michaelj1998, 15 November 2016

Looking at a car | by michaelj1998

 Looking at a car. Los Angeles, Ca.: photo by michaelj1998, 22 December 2016

Looking at a car | by michaelj1998

Looking at a car. Los Angeles, Ca.: photo by michaelj1998, 22 December 2016

Looking at a car | by michaelj1998

Looking at a car. Los Angeles, Ca.: photo by michaelj1998, 22 December 2016

6 comments:

TC said...

Astrud Gilberto / Stan Getz: The Girl from Ipanema (1964)

Jefferson Airplane: Won't You Try / Saturday Afternoon (Woodstock 1969)

kent said...

TC: Today’s year’s end issue forces my hand to share this blurb recalling the occasion of my single planetary contact with JLB in, of all places, The Hopwood Room circa 1975. It wasn’t a Saturday afternoon, rather a Monday surprise as no one seemed to know he was coming. My friend in Music School heard it from his thesis advisor, drove over and grabbed me (no cells of course) and we ran to Angell Hall. I still thought it BS, and then we walked in…


From the work in-progress,
Avery’s Flower Shop:

In the only room
where eye
spied Borges,

touching his hand
as we reached
for a match.

TC said...

kent,

That's really lovely. Blindness and vision. Memory, also a spy.

When I lived up State in a roominghouse on East Ann, THR was a warm sanctuary on a cold day, and of course it was almost always a cold day, most of the time.

A refuge. Mary Cooley.

Sandra said...

una pena que se parece al alma"....¡bello !

TC said...

Muchas gracias Sandra, qué alegría aprender no soy el único movido por la poesía de Borges. No es muy leído por los norteamericanos ... bueno, hemos visto que nuestro amigo Hazen es una excepción. Pero los temas de los poemas, el tiempo, la historia, la memoria, quizás no son temas que interesan a los norteamericanos. Quién sabe. Pero éstos eran los temas de este poeta, y yo soy viejo, y para bien o para mal estos son ahora mis temas también (¡los sujetos de mis pensamientos!) ... y Borges está ahora entre los poetas que tengo más queridos.

En cualquier caso, ya que parece haber vivido otro día, y es otro siglo ... más Borges!

Alastor said...

Alguien me podría decir el significado de este gran poema? Por favor!

Can someone please tell me the meaning of this beautiful poem? Please!