Meaningful Coincidence

Just yesterday I was reading in a book authored by the Portuguese philosopher José Antonio Antón-Pacheco some reflections on Miguel de Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life. That reading immediately predisposed me to like Unamuno’s general view of reality. This morning I come across one of Unamuno’s poems on Siris (link) titled “The immortality of the crab.” And in following that up, I encountered  another take on that subject written by Mexico’s leading poet, José Emilio Pacheco. The two Pachecos are not, as best I can discover, related in any way—but that simply adds to the coincidence.

Not alone in the world, not among the poets, anyway—or poet-philosophers—in feeling kinship with the grass and with the crab, expecting to encounter them even on the other side...of the Borderzone.