Last Night

Streams of light drench the street, the trees, the vacant facades. The moon is a fat egg, approaching roundness. I place the hose to send an arcing stream of water into the bed of sourgrass, and I watch the two streams mingle. Everywhere it falls but on the water, the moonlight is placid, illuminating a static world. On the gurgling stream it plays and flashes, reveals transient facets, mirrors its source in motile distortions. It is the fluid sun I see, twice removed, spilling into the dark soil, vanishing into roots.



Sunday Verse

Oracle

by Octavio Paz


The cold lips of the night
utter a word
column of grief
no word but stone
no stone but shadow
vaporous thoughts
through my vaporous lips real water
word of truth
reason behind my errors
If it is death only through that do I live
if it is solitude I speak in serving it
It is memory and I remember nothing
I do not know what it says and I trust myself to it
how to know oneself living
how to forget one's knowing
Time that half-opens the eyelids
and sees us, letting itself be seen


-translated by Charles Tomlinson