kora

Between Going and Staying

Thursday, 25. October 2007, 18:24:08

by Octavio Paz

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.

today at work...fresh look...

Comments

solid copper # 6. November 2007, 00:13

Like the poem and that picture! Very nice.

redjava # 6. November 2007, 02:17

thank you copper

i absolutely love this poem

do you ever feel as if you were a pause?

solid copper # 6. November 2007, 04:54

I pause way too much to some people. But I am an Aquarian, so...

Actually I think only people who pause could feel the pulse of this poem. I read it several times. Love the atmosphere.

redjava # 6. November 2007, 18:02

i think everyone should pause once in a while, imagine all we would miss if we didn't? If you like this poem, I think you'd really like one of Strand's poems...

http://my.opera.com/redjava/blog/today-my-hero-is (also my favorite)

solid copper # 6. November 2007, 18:35

I am less impressed by that one. It immediately reminds me of some principle of physics - the law of buoyancy. But I can see why you like it.

Should send that one to Sayeed though.

By the way, do you like Paz's other poem Brotherhood? I like it a lot.

redjava # 6. November 2007, 20:30

he he he, you're right, should send it to Sayeed, we haven't given him a hard time in a while...

mmm... brotherhood, it's funny, i do like it a lot, yet i remember dismissing it first time i read it for the part of i am a man, (although i don't think myself a feminist at all) had to let it simmer in my head for a while -- replacing that line with "i am a woman" would give it totally a different meaning -- he's got such a unique way with words...

you know, it's interesting that you mention physics, i never thought about that...

solid copper # 6. November 2007, 20:58

Paz was once enchanted with Marxist ideas and communism. So it is natural for him to talk about brotherhood like that . When I read the poem, I take "man" as "human" or "human being".

About the thought of physics, it is the second last paragraph of the poem that especially evokes the thought:
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
Replace "air" with " water", that is just what the law of buoyancy is about. And that is why it is probably good to send it to Sayeed. Haha.

For myself, I want the last paragraph:
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

redjava # 6. November 2007, 21:19

NO!!! that last paragraph is mine!!! i saw it first!!!

solid copper # 6. November 2007, 21:42

Gesus-Mary-Christ! I move, you pause. Okay?