Why is it so sad to be awake at dawn?
— JORGE LOUIS BORGES.
We know that the heart of life is good, and we realize this fact time and time again. Yet we also learn, as early as the cradle, that the purest times in life are often the most transient. Like the shore fumes at waves for coming so close and always leaving so quickly, Borges examines the impermanent nature of all things in life within the metaphor of sleep.
Sleep
If sleep is truce, as it sometimes said,
A pure time for the mind to rest and heal,
Why, when they suddenly wake you, do you feel
That they have stolen everything you had?
Why is it so sad to be awake at dawn?
It strips us of a gift so strange, so deep,
It can be remembered only in half-sleep,
Moments of drowsiness that gild and adorn
The waking mind with dreams, which may well be
But broken images of the night’s treasure,
A timeless world that has no name or measure
And breaks up in the mirrors of the day.
Who will you be tonight, in the dark thrall
Of sleep, when you have slipped across its wall?
–Translated by Robert Mezey
Once we accept that every happiness is fleeting, Borges urges us to live. He warns us that we run the risk of passing our whole life asleep if we fail to focus on the small joys that come our way.
Donc, on ecrit. 