Jorge Luis Borges

Life is fleeting – we’re here and then, we’re not. But all the things we surround ourselves with remain.

Here’s a poem by Jorge Francisco Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and key figure in Spanish-language and international literature.

Things
My cane, my pocket change, this ring of keys,
The obedient lock, the belated notes
The few days left to me will not find time
To read, the deck of cards, the tabletop,
A book and crushed in its pages the withered
Violet, monument to an afternoon
Undoubtedly forgettable, now forgotten,
The mirror in the west where a red sunrise
Blazes its illusion. How many things,
Files, doorsills, atlases, wine glasses, nails
Serve us like slaves who never say a word,
Blind and so mysteriously reserved.
They will endure beyond our vanishing;
And they will never know that we have gone.

--Jorge Luis Borges