Simplicity

The garden gate is opened
as easily as a turned page
questioned by a regular devotion
and once inside, our gazes
have no need to fix on objects
that already exist completely in memory.
I am familiar with the customs and the souls
and that dialectic of allusions
which any gathering of humans weaves.
I need not speak
nor claim false privileges;
those who surround me here know me well,
know well my afflictions and my weakness.
That is to attain the highest thing,
what will perhaps be given us by heaven:
not veneration or victories,
but simply to be accepted
as part of an undeniable Reality,
like stones and trees.

poem : Simplicity, by Jorge Luis Borges
(from Fervor de Buenos Aires, translated by Stephen Kessler)
image : Syncopath, A woman. A bench. Brussels, 2013