watching I watch myself what I see is my creation
as though entering through my eyes perception is conception
into an eye more crystal clear water of thoughts
what I watch watches me I am the creation of what I see
~Octavio Paz, from ‘Blanco’
(Photo by Yura Koshel)
Exclamation
Stillness
Not on the branch
In the air
Not in the air
In the moment
Hummingbird
~Octavio Paz, from ‘A Draft of Shadows’
(Photo by Laura Williams)
One and the Same
Spaces
Space
No center, no above, no below
Ceaselessly devouring and engendering itself
Whirlpool space
And drop into height
Spaces
Clarities steeply cut
Suspended
By the night’s flank
Black gardens of rock crystal
Flowering on a rod of smoke
White gardens exploding in the air
Space
One space opening up
Corolla
And dissolving
Space in space
All is nowhere
Place of impalpable nuptials
~Octavio Paz, trans. by Johannes Beilharz
(Photo by Sergei Chubarov)
The water hollowed the stone,
the wind dispersed the water,
the stone stopped the wind.
Water and wind and stone.
The wind sculpted the stone,
the stone is a cup of water,
The water runs off and is wind.
Stone and wind and water.
The wind sings in its turnings,
the water murmurs as it goes,
the motionless stone is quiet.
Wind and water and stone.
One is the other and is neither:
among their empty names
they pass and disappear,
water and stone and wind.
~Octavio Paz
(Photo by Kat08glow)
“Perhaps to love is to learn
to walk through this world.
To learn to be silent
like the oak and the linden of the fable.
To learn to see.
Your glance scattered seeds.
It planted a tree.
I talk
because you shake its leaves.”
~Octavio Paz, Coda
(Photo by Alloxa)
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