Jorge Luis Borges, 'Waking Up' (El Despertar)

Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). This poem pretty much sums up my Christmas morning:

"Daylight leaks in, and sluggishly I surface
from my own dreams into the common dream
and things assume again their proper places
and their accustomed shapes. Into this present
the Past intrudes, in all its dizzying range --
the centuries-old habits of migration
in birds and men, the armies in their legions
all fallen to the sword, and Rome and Carthage.
The trappings of my day also come back:
my voice, my face, my nervousness, my luck.
If only Death, that other waking-up,
would grant me a time free of all memory
of my own name and all that I have been.
If only morning meant oblivion."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Jorge
• Luis
• Borges
• Despair
• Depression
• Agrentina
• Poetry
• Despertar
• dadasopher

[KellyWritersHouse]

thanks for this!!

[papermason]

I feel the poet is saying that all we really are and everything we do is part of an endless dream. No past, no present, and no meaning, no reason for being.

[DiosaPaulina]

nice

[MarasVeil]

yes, and passing through that Death and Oblivion, to awaken again with a new dream untainted by history

wonderful post... thank you.