When sorrow lays us low <br />for a second we are saved <br />by humble windfalls <br />of the mindfulness or memory: <br />the taste of a fruit, the taste of water, <br />that face given back to us by a dream, <br />the first jasmine of November, <br />the endless yearning of the compass, <br />a book we thought was lost, <br />the throb of a hexameter, <br />the slight key that opens a house to us, <br />the smell of a library, or of sandalwood, <br />the former name of a street, <br />the colors of a map, <br />an unforeseen etymology, <br />the smoothness of a filed fingernail, <br />the date we were looking for, <br />the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count, <br />a sudden physical pain. <br /> <br />Eight million Shinto deities <br />travel secretly throughout the earth. <br />Those modest gods touch us-- <br />touch us and move on.<br /><br />Jorge Luis Borges<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shinto/
