From the Spanish of Jorge Luis Borges
With love she looked as the twilight hues
Agonized their slow dissipation.
It pleased her to disappear into
Curious verse, the tune’s complication.
But ‘twas not the root red but the grays
That spun her delicate destination;
She was made for nuance and delay
In her practice of discrimination.
So, not daring to tread any nearer
To the labyrinth’s perplexions she’d hide
Like that other lady in the mirror
In the forms, their course, a cry from outside.
At such prayers the Gods who dwell higher
Abandoned her to that tiger, the fire.
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Susana Soca
Con lento amor miraba los disperses
Colores de la tarde. Le placía
Perderse en la compleja melodía
O en la curiosa vida de los versos.
No el rojo elemental sino los grises
Hilaron su destino delicado,
Hecho a discriminar y ejercitado
En la vacilación y en los matices.
Sin atreverse a hollar este perplejo
Laberinto, atisbaba desde afuera
Las formas, el tumulto y la carrera,
Como aquella otra dama del espejo.
Dioses que moran más allá del ruego
La abandonaron a ese tigre, el Fuego.
