A poem on lost memories

[Isacosmo]

Hello

There is this poem written by the Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges which I really really like, and I used it a long time ago to affectionately explain to my friend that recognized me from a PL that I wasn't fit for being the one she believed I was because I just couldn't remember.


Elegy for the impossible remembrance

Would that I could have the memory
Of a low-walled, earthen street,
Of a tall horseman trespassing dawn
(long and spent is his cloak)
On the prairies on an indefinite day,
On a dateless day.
Would that I could have the memory
Of my mother gazing at dawn
In Santa Irene ranch,
Not knowing that her name would be Borges.
Would that I could have the memory
Of Hengist's barks
Sailing from Denmark
To put down an island
Not yet called England.
Would that I could have the memory
(I had it, but it is lost)
Of a golden canvas of Turner,
Vast as music.
Would that I could have the memory
Of being one of the hearers of Socrates,
Who, in the afternoon of the hemlock,
Pondered calmly over the problem
Of immortality,
Alternating myth with reason,
While the blue death was rising
From his cold feet.

She just laughed and replied: "There's 'spread' in this poem of yours"
Oh TEH creature! lol

 

[Tinkerman]

Great poem, beautiful! Could you tell me which book of his this is in?

Thank you for sharing. ~Tman

 

[Tinkerman]

Here is a poem that speaks to me and my memories:

Sudden Light
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

 

[Isacosmo]

Here is a poem that speaks to me and my memories:

Sudden Light
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I have been here before...

Tinkerman, this Rossetti's poem I didn't know about is so Beautiful that it gave me goose pimples! "The grass beyond the door" image is just lovely!
Thank you too for sharing.

 

[Isacosmo]

Great poem, beautiful! Could you tell me which book of his this is in?

Well, this is in La moneda de hierro (1976), which translates as The iron coin. This one is my own free translation, not an official one, and I have omitted some verses for it is a wee long
You know Borges?
I really love his poems and images and metaphors etc.!
Here goes one who certainly could tell where he has been before! Prolly not conciously, but he did.

 

[Tinkerman]

Isa, I came across him in my studies, but did not delve into him. I was looking at some of his ideas on craft, and yes his use of metaphor was one of those areas. There are some excellent interviews of him in print where he explains a lot of his ideas. I'm headed for a large used book sale next month and I'll be watching for both of these writers.

With the level of beauty in his words... he certainly knows the feeling; passionate longing is the key... "in death's despite..." And yes, first stanza sells it!

I wonder if other members of the forum have poems that speak such beautiful words.

Blessings, ~Tman

 

[Isacosmo]

Isa, I came across him in my studies, but did not delve into him. I was looking at some of his ideas on craft, and yes his use of metaphor was one of those areas. There are some excellent interviews of him in print where he explains a lot of his ideas. I'm headed for a large used book sale next month and I'll be watching for both of these writers.

With the level of beauty in his words... he certainly knows the feeling; passionate longing is the key... "in death's despite..." And yes, first stanza sells it!

I wonder if other members of the forum have poems that speak such beautiful words.

Blessings, ~Tman

Yes, go for Borges.
Do you know, you should read The Immortal, it is an amazing piece of story, and there it is again the idea of rebirth. Came to think of it --- he was intrigued with the concept! It is in the book The Aleph (1949).

It starts like --
Solomon saith: There is no new thing upon the earth. So that, as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance, so Solomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.

How wonderful is that?!