Jul 11, 2004 20:51
For Stephen, between fate and fate
Indian Ocean, 1804
They were poised high above the surface of the sea... Stephen had asked him a question. 'Had he ever considered the ship thus seen as a figure of the present -- the untouched sea before it as the future -- the bow-wave as the moment of perception, of immediate existence?'
--H.M.S. Surprise
Between Going and Staying
Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.
--Octavio Paz