I Like Poetry

[b]Ewigkeit[/b]

I turn in my mouth the Castilian verse
that says what always tends to be said
since the Latin of Seneca: horrendous
dictum that all we are is food for worms.

Let the pale ashes return to chant
the tales of death and of a victory
for that rhetorical queen who steps on
our standard banners, our empty glory.

Not so. Whatsoever has blessed this hide
I’m not going to deny like a coward.
I know that one thing is not: oblivion.

I know that in eternity it all lasts
and burns—the much and the precious that I’ve lost:
this forge of mine, that moon, this afternoon.

—Jorge Luis Borges