To J.L.B.

I like to think we are cut from the same cloth,
That dark stuff from which dreams and dreamers are constructed,
We are views of the same face from different perspectives,
A single reflection from an infinite number of mirrors.

Perhaps we will meet, one day,
And talk of the plains and the thunder of horses,
Or perhaps we will talk of books, of words and numbers,
The fear of death and the horror of immortality,
Of thesis and antithesis (identical in the eyes of God),
Of unspeakable acts, bravely spoken.

Perhaps we will meet one day,
Or perhaps we have already met.
I see you in the reflected light
Of those who follow after you,
But the man himself stays hidden
Behind a curtain of darkness and shadow.

You come to me in dreams (though I know not yours or mine)
In spaces where the veil grows thin, the contours ill-defined:
No longer the lively raconteur, words crawling from the page,
But a dark and silent specter with a sharp and silvered blade.
Once you offered the knife to me, and silent there you stood:
And the blade shined just like new, without a trace of blood.
And Borges! As you fade away, I try to understand
Your whisper: "Be a hero, be a villain... be a man."

- DBN

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