For Jorge Luis Borges

Sometimes things happen
to those who know too much;
you lasted a long time.
Perhaps someone thought,
mistakenly, that riddles
are a form of self-censorship.
Unlocking the mirrored cabinet
chamber after chamber,
with smaller and smaller keys
plucked from air,
you reached the quicksilver
inside the darkness.
In your mind's eye,
the tree fits inside the seed
that envisions, survives it.
To your long life, brief art,
I raise this glass, drink
the dry crystal liquid.
Understanding, when it comes,
is like a leaf unfurling.