(Jorge Luis Barges, 1899-1986/translated by Alastair Reid)

Quite suddenly the evening clears at last
as now outside the soft small rain is falling.
Falling or fallen. Rain itself is something
undoubetedly which happens in the past.

Whoever hearst it falling has remembered
a time in which a curious twist of fate
brought back to him a flower whose name was "rose"
and the perplexing redness of its red.

This rain which spreads its blind across the pane
must also brighten in forgotten suburbs
the black grapes on a vine across a shrouded

patio now no more. The evening's rain
brings me the voice, the dear voice of my father,
who comes bake now, who never has been dead.

博爾赫斯早年喪母，其生活與教育全由他的父親照料，
其父是一個博學多才、熱愛文學的醫生，安排詩人到日
內瓦上中學，到劍橋上大學，對他的一生影響極大。事
實上博爾赫斯確實完成了一篇流傳極廣的文章《濟慈的
夜鶯》(The Nightingale of Keats)，應證了他對父親
真摯深沉的情感。讓我們用詩人一首懷念父親的名詩
＜雨＞（Rain）來說明。

選自：尤克強專欄