I do not know what it is
That you so earnestly wish to forget.
That makes me tremble.
I find you smothered
In the startling infinity of the universe
Where time neither sets nor rises
And the stars are the stars are the stars.
So I wake you from your sleep
And pronounce your name,
Shaking you into existence.
The weight of memories
A pebble rippling your dream-pool.
There, I have disturbed the still hour,
See how things begin to move:
Swift-footed Time begins its race,
And glaciers start to weep.
Stars unfold their dark mysteries
And secrets are spilled
by quivering plums.
Beginnings and endings,
I would not have you miss them.
This then is why I woke you.
Even the Lethe river must run its course.
Lethe river— The river of Forgetfulness in Greek mythology.
Reverso by Jorge Luis Borges (translated from Spanish)
"To wake someone from sleep
is a common day-to-day act
that can set us trembling.
To wake someone from sleep
is to saddle some other with the interminable
prison of the universe
of his time, with neither sunset nor dawn.
It is to show him he is someone or something
subject to a name that lays claim to him
and an accumulation of yesterdays.
It is to trouble his eternity,
to load him down with centuries and stars,
to restore to time another Lazarus
burdened with memory.
It is to desecrate the waters of Lethe."
I would not have you remain suspended indefinitely in forgetfulness as the world turns groaningly on its axis. I would have you accept the inevitability of change in wonder.
