
WINE SONNET
What realm, what age, what century, what silent
alignment of the stars, what secret day
unmarked in marble gave rise to the brave
and singular notion of inventing joy?
It was invented with the gold of autumns. Wine
flows red down through the generations like
the river of time and on the hard road
it graces us with music, fire and lions.
In jubilant nights or at the end of a dark day
it cheers us on or mitigates our fear
and the song of praise I sing for it today
the Arab and the Persian sang before.
Wine, teach me the art of seeing my own past
as if it were already memory’s ash.
- Jorge Luis Borges, boyfriend.