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The Sea by Borges

November 1, 2020 by Steve Mentz

[With thanks to Anna Intere and the Sea Library I ran across this sea-poem by Borges this morning, right after I took this sea-picture. John Updike’s translation, in Borges’s Selected Poems (2004), is very good. But I thought I’d do an early November translation myself too.]

November light (Short Beach)

Before the dream, or the terror, it interweaves

Mythologies and cosmographies.

Before the time unweaves itself into days —

The sea, always, the always-sea, it was and was.

Who is the sea? Who is the violent

Ancient creature that chews earth’s sandy pillars,

One and many sea-mouths gnawing,

And abyss and splendor and chance and wind?

Who sees it sees it for the first time

Always. With elemental wonders drawn out, sad evenings,

Bright moon, cooled embers from last night’s bonfire on the beach.

Who is the sea? Who am I? I will not know it until

After the last succeeding wave-days and pain.

“El Mar” from El otro, el mismo (1964)

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Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
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Shakespearean. Ecocritic. Swimmer. New book Ocean #objectsobjects Professor at St. John's in NYC. #bluehumanities #pluralizetheanthropocene

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stevermentz Steve Mentz @stevermentz ·
20 Jan

Send us your book proposals!

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stevermentz Steve Mentz @stevermentz ·
31 Dec

Much to remember in '22, including a fantastic fall in Germany at the @CarsonCenter. But especially one day in late October, while isolating with Covid in a rural farmhouse in Bavaria, when I saw my first all-creative publication, these little poems --

http://www.ghostbirdpress.org/2022/10/swim-poems-by-steve-mentz.html

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