Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone

Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
For all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.

If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?

Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.

There is in the South more than one worn gate,
With its cement urns and planted cactus,
Which is already forbidden to my entry,
Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.

There is a door you have closed forever
And some mirror is expecting you in vain;
To you the crossroads seem wide open,
Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.

There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.

You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.

And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,
All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?
They will be as lost as Carthage,
Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.

At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.

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Borges again, this poem seemed to sum up a lot of the anxiety I was feeling about being at a particular point in my life where I am reflecting on where I’ve been and with who, what it has meant and how much it has impacted upon and will influence wherever it is I shall be moving on to.

As a joint English student with a particular personal interest in poetry it is not surprising that the form heavily influenced my final script. This point will be discussed further when blogging about script creation.

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Jorge Luis Borges, Limites (1958), Online: http://genius.com/Jorge-luis-borges-limits-annotated , (accessed 12 March 2015).

Jorge Luis Borges – The Library of Babel

This is the key text that I wish to build my piece around; I chose it for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Borges’ imagery in this short story has stuck with me since I first came across the piece a year or so ago; that a ‘library’ doesn’t have to be just that, but can be eloquently translated into a haunting metaphor for the universe.

Secondly, I personally think that that metaphor is amazingly beautiful and powerful; are we, inhabitants of this universe, not all stories waiting to be read? Are we not all unique, full of meaning yet at times uninterpretable? Are we not all allocated a time and place and yet, are movable and transient? Do we not all try and read others in our search for understanding?

Thirdly, I like maths. I find a comfort in the structured organisation of solvable equations and projectable hypotheses. If I could therefore create Borges’ library, or at least a small part of it, I could perhaps create a space that is simultaneously abstract, irresolute and yet tangible and even reassuring. Creating the library seemed to me the perfect setting in which to order and represent my ideas.

Lastly, I wished to address the construct of storytelling, seeking knowledge through the written word and the reverence we assign such writing. Creating a library which was representative of the universe, centred on words, stories and books would, in my opinion, therefore highlight and amplify their status, and so be an ideal setting in which to question their purpose and power.