EL SUICIDA – Jorge Luís Borges
No quedará en la noche una estrella.
No quedará la noche.
Moriré y conmigo la suma
del intolerable universo.
Borraré las pirámides, las medallas,
los continentes y las caras.
Borraré la acumulación del pasado.
Haré polvo la historia, polvo el polvo.
Estoy mirando el último poniente.
Oigo el último pájaro.
Lego la nada a nadie.
The Suicide – Jorge Luís Borges – my translation
No star will remain in the night
The night will not remain
I will die and with me the sum
of the intolerable universe.
I will erase the pyramids, the medals,
the continents and the faces.
I will erase the accumulations of the past.
I am looking at the last sunset.
I listen to the last bird.
I cede nothing to nobody.
These past few weeks I have been unsettled and depressed knowing that a photographer and friend I taught in 2008, and a fine street photographer he was, is lined up for MAID in June.
His phone has been disconnected and my emails bounce back. I would want to have a final chat before his final choice.
The closest I have been to pain was at a dentist’s chair when they had slow drills. I cannot comprehend at one point when pain, or something else compels a person to choose oblivion.
Ripe in my mind is the question my Rosemary made in bed a few minutes before she died, “Am I dying?” I did not answer. I wonder if she feared her death or she was glad that her suffering would end.
I will never know and I will remember my friend until, I too, meet my eventual oblivion.