This is one of my favorite poems by writer Jorge Luis Borges:
“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.”
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.”
There is so much yearning in these words. Such honest beauty.
Borges expresses hope in people. He watches the ambitious and wants to understand them. He sees their passion, their hunger for success, their vulnerability to excess, their need to relax, to let go of so much urgency. He identifies with them. “My humanity,” he writes, “is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.”
What is that poverty? The need to perform, to achieve, to win, to succeed, to be recognized and affirmed. We all have that, more or less. And we slavishly seek to satisfy it.
But the fulfillment, the contentment we long for, is not in the daily grind. It’s not in the stepping over others to advance ourselves. It’s not in the blunt, rude manner of our time. It’s not in the building up of capital, the accumulation of property, or the insatiable craving for things.
It’s in those simple gifts. Borges says they reside in what he calls his “homeland.” The music of a guitar. Some pictures. An old trinket. And the soft, gentle arms of the willow tree folded in prayer.
Instinctively, we know this. We know where the good stuff is. And we know where the incorrectness exists. And yet, too often, we choose the shadowy encumbrances and walk past the luminous offerings that could deeply benefit us.
However we strain for it, we cannot be the gods we want to be. But alarmingly, if we are not vigilant, we can become something less than human, with casual ease.
It’s the simple things that nourish and affirm us and keep us balanced. It's caring for one another. It’s honoring the magnificence of nature, the fellowship of animals, tasty food, and intimate friends.
It is in finding our homeland, that place in the center of the chaos where life hums with meaning.
© 2017 Timothy Moody
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