Shinto by Jorge Luis Borges

When misfortune confounds us

in an instant we are saved

by the humblest actions

of memory or attention:

the taste of fruit, the taste of water,

that face returned to us in dream,

the first jasmine flowers of November,

the infinite yearning of the compass,

a book we thought forever lost,

the pulsing of a hexameter,

the little key that opens a house,

the smell of sandalwood or library,

the ancient name of a street,

the colourations of a map,

an unforeseen etymology,

the smoothness of a filed fingernail,

the date that we were searching for,

counting the twelve dark bell-strokes,

a sudden physical pain.

Eight million the deities of Shinto

who travel the earth, secretly.

Those modest divinities touch us,

touch us, and pass on by.

From

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/Borges.htm#_Toc192667918