The Just by Jorge Luis Borges

A man who cultivates a garden, the way Voltaire wanted.

One who is grateful there is music in the world.

Who delights in knowing where words come from.

Two workmen who, in a cafe in the South, play chess silently.

The potter who deliberates over form and colour.

The typesetter who lays out this page well but still is not pleased

A woman and a man reading the last tercets of a certain canto.

One who strokes a sleeping animal.

Who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done to him.

Who is grateful for Stevenson,

Who prefers others to be right.

These are people who, ignored, are saving the world.

 

by Jorge Luis Borges, 1899-1986, Argentina

translated by Kurt Heinzelman

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