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In Praise of Darkness: 2

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This volume of poems - I refer to the Spanish version - Elogio a la Sombra - makes my short list of my favorite books. Mr Borges infuses these poems with his characteristic mystery and inventiveness. But he proves himself capable of versifying as well - "Manuel Flores va a morir" comes to mind. His preface too is memorable for its simplicity and its humility, as well as its affirmation of a truism too easily forgotten: In this world, beauty is common. Although I have not held this book in my hands for 20 years, many of the lines from these poems remain with me still. I would certainly be eager to acquire a copy of this work

The book- jacket tells us that these poems collected here are the first Borges has written since 1929 with the aim of collecting them in one volume. When he began to go blind in the 1950's Borges moved more to the writing of poetry rather than short stories because he could work on the poems by memory. "The darkness in the title, says Borges, " stands for blindness and death". Among the poems are Heraclitus, Cambridge,Elsa ,New England 1967, James Joyce, The Unending Gift, Episode of the Enemy, The Labyrinth, Labyrith, May 20,1928, Ricardo Guiraldes, The Anthropologist, To a Certain Ghost 1940, Plain Things, Rubiyat, Pedro Salvadores, To Israel, Israel, June 1968, The Keeper of the Books, The Gauchos,Acevedo, Milonga, Invocation to Joyce, Israel 1969, Buenos Aires, From an Apocryphal Gospel, Legend, Prayer, a Reader, In Praise of Darkness.
I do not know Spanish well enough to comment on the quality of translation. I can say that Norman Thomas di Giovanni's translation reads like true poetry.
I would like to conclude the review by citing a few of Borges' lines.

ISRAEL 1969

I feared that in Israel there might be lurking,
sweetly and insidiously,
the nostalgia gathered like some sad treasure
during the centuries of dispersion
in cities of the unbeliever,in ghettoes,
in the sunset of the steppes- in dreams-
the nostalgia of those who longed for you,
Jerusalem, beside the waters of Babylon.
What else were you, Israel , but that wistfulness,
that will to save
amid the shifting shapes of time
your old magical book, your ceremonies,
your loneliness with God?
Not so.The most ancient of nations
is also the youngest.
You have not tempted men with gardens or gold,
and the emptiness of gold
but with the hard work, beleaguered land,
Without words Israel has told them:
Forget who you are
Forget who you have been
Forget the man you were in those countries
which gave you their mornings and evenings
and to which you must not look back in yearing.
You will forget your father's tongue
and learn the ongue of Paradise.
You shall be an Israeli, a soldier,
You shall build a country on wasteland,
making it rise out of deserts
Your brother, whose face you've never seen
will work by your side.
One thing only we promise you-
your place in the battle.