Death and Dying

Death and dying are preoccupations of Borges in poems written throughout his lifetime. He approaches the theme from many angles. Often, he sees death as mysteriously beautiful, moving, and worthy of our reverence. He regards the dead as voyagers into the unknown, as representations of the past, to which we remain connected in the present, and as phenomena. To him, dying seems to be a step that holds so much potential for new insight and awareness that those who have taken it ahead of him are invested with a new power he cannot yet claim. It is as if they have joined a stream of life into which he may not yet enter, which gives them capabilities he cannot even fathom, which he envies and desires to have. As Borges grows older, he increasingly communes in his imagination with the dead. Sometimes, he conjures his ancestors...