Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in … - Jorge Luis Borges

Boast of Quietness

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to
understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,
the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive.

أن تحملق فى النهر الذى يصنعه الزمن والماء
وأن تتذكر أن الزمن ذاته نهر آخر
أن تعرف أننا نكف عن الوجود، تماما مثل النهر
وأن وجوهنا تموت وترحل، تماما مثل الماء
أن تُحسّ بأن الاستيقاظ نوم آخر
يحلم بأنه لا ينام وبأن الموت
الذى يرتعد منه لحمنا، هو نفسه ذلك الموت
الذى يحدث كل ليلة، والذى نسميه النوم
أن ترى فى اليوم أو فى السنة رمزا
لأيام البشرية وسنينها
أن تُحوّل إهانة السنين
إلى موسيقى، وحفيف، ورمز

Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.