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We are the famous metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure


Kayak on the Derwent. May, 2010.

One day – I promise – I will kayak to work. What’s the point of living next to a river estuary if one does not kayak to work?

We are the time. We are the famous, Jorge Luis Borges

We are the time. We are the famous
metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure.

We are the water, not the hard diamond,
the one that is lost, not the one that stands still.

We are the river and we are that greek
that looks himself into the river. His reflection
changes into the waters of the changing mirror,
into the crystal that changes like the fire.

We are the vain predetermined river,
in his travel to his sea.

The shadows have surrounded him.
Everything said goodbye to us, everything goes away.

Memory does not stamp his own coin.

However, there is something that stays
however, there is something that bemoans.

Comments

Kris McCracken said…
This is such a nice one too!
Admin said…
That is a beautiful poem. He wrote another about Heraclitus:

HERACLITUS
The day’s second twilight.
Night that sinks into sleep.
Purification and oblivion.
The day’s first twilight.
Morning that once was dawn.
Day that once was morning.
The crowded day that will become the weary evening.
The day’s second twilight.
That other habit of time, night.
Purification and oblivion.
The day’s first twilight . . .
The furtive dawn and in the dawn
the Greek’s bewilderment.
What web is this
of will be, is, and was?
What river’s this
through which the Ganges flows?
What river’s this whose source is unimaginable?
What river’s this
that bears along mythologies and swords?
No use in sleeping.
It runs through sleep, through deserts, through cellars.
The river bears me on and I am the river.
I was made of a changing substance, of mysterious time.
Maybe the source is in me.
Maybe out of my shadow
the days arise, relentless and unreal.

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