What can I hold you with?
What can I hold you with?
I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of ragged suburbs.
I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.
I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts that living men have honoured in marble: my father’s father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother’s grandfather -just twenty four- heading a charged of three hundred men in Peru, now ghosts on vanished horses.
I offer you whatever insight my books may hold, whatever manliness or humour my life.
I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.
I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow -the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.
I offer you the memory of yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.
I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.
I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts that living men have honoured in marble: my father’s father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother’s grandfather -just twenty four- heading a charged of three hundred men in Peru, now ghosts on vanished horses.
I offer you whatever insight my books may hold, whatever manliness or humour my life.
I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.
I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow -the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.
I offer you the memory of yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.
I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
(Jorge Luis Borges)
¿Con qué puedo retenerte?
Le ofrezco calles magras, atardeceres desesperados, la luna de los suburbios desgarrados.
Le ofrezco la amargura de un hombre que ha mirado largo y tendido a la luna solitaria.
Le ofrezco mis antepasados, mis muertos, los fantasmas que los vivos han honrado en mármol: el padre de mi padre muerto en la frontera de Buenos Aires, dos balas atravesándole los pulmones, barbudo y muerto, envuelto por sus soldados en la piel de una vaca; el abuelo de mi madre -sólo veinticuatro años- al frente de una carga de trescientos hombres en el Perú, ahora fantasmas sobre caballos desvanecidos.
Le ofrezco cualquier revelación que puedan contener mis libros, la hombría o la comedia que pueda tener mi vida.
Le ofrezco la lealtad de un hombre que nunca... ha sido leal.
Le ofrezco ese núcleo de mí mismo que he salvado, de algún modo, el corazón central que no trata con palabras, no trafica con sueños ni es tocado por el tiempo, por la alegría, por las adversidades.
Le ofrezco el recuerdo de una rosa amarilla vista al atardecer, años antes de que usted naciera.
Le ofrezco explicaciones de usted misma, teorías sobre usted misma, auténticas y sorprendentes noticias sobre usted misma.
Puedo darle mi soledad, mi oscuridad, el hambre de mi corazón; intento sobornarla con incertidumbre, con peligro, con derrota.
(Jorge Luis Borges)
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