El olor del café y de los periódicos.
El domingo y su tedio. La mañana
y en la entrevista página esa vana
publicación de versos alegóricos
de un colega feliz. El hombre viejo
está postrado y blanco en su decente
habitación de pobre. Ociosamente
mira su cara en el cansado espejo.
Piensa, ya sin asombro, que esa cara
es él. La distraída mano toca
la turbia barba y saqueada boca.
No está lejos el fin. Su voz declara:
Casi no soy, pero mis versos ritman
la vida y su esplendor. Yo fui Walt
Whitman.
Jorge Luis Borges
Camden, 1892
The smell of coffee and
the daily news.
Another Sunday and the
Sunday blues.
Morning. Printed on a
hazy page,
some happy other poet’s
vain displays
of allegoric verse. And
in this place,
poor but still well
kept, the old man lies
white and flat in bed.
His idle eyes
look in the tired mirror
at his face.
He thinks (it doesn’t
shock him now) that face
is him. His
absent-minded fingertips
pluck at his muddy
beard and plundered lips.
The end is not far off.
And his voice says:
I almost am not. But my
lines keep the rhythm
of life and its splendour.
I was Walt Whitman.
translated by Madeleine Picciotto
(Picture: Portrait of Walt Whitman, Thomas Eakins)
