Octavio Paz
Desire turns us into ghosts. — Octavio Paz, from “A Draft of Shadows,” The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987 (New Directions, 1987)
Category: Mexican Literature
Octavio Paz
I spell out, not words, but stars : — Octavio Paz, “On the Wing(2),” A Tree Within (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1988)
Octavio Paz
Trees heavy with birds holdthe afternoon up with their hands. — Octavio Paz, from “THE TOMB Of AMIR KHUSRU,” A Tale of Two Gardens (NewDirections, 1997)
Octavio Paz
I follow my raving, rooms, streets,I grope my way through corridors of time,I climb and descend its stairs, I touchits walls and do not move, I go backto where I began, I search for your face,I walk through the streets of myselfunder an ageless sun, and by my sideyou walk like a tree, you walk… Continue reading Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
We are time and cannot escape its dominion. We can transfigure it but not deny it or destroy it. This is what the great artists, poets, philosophers, scientists, and certain men of action have done. Love, too, is an answer: because it is time and made of time, love is at once consciousness of death… Continue reading Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Human love is the union of two beings subject to time and its accidents: change, sickness, death. Although it does not save us from time, it opens it a crack, so that in a flash love’s contradictory nature is manifest: that vivacity which endlessly destroys itself and is reborn, which is always both now and… Continue reading Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
We are time and cannot escape its dominion. We can transfigure it but not deny it or destroy it. This is what the great artists, poets, philosophers, scientists, and certain men of action have done. Love, too, is an answer: because it is time and made of time, love is at once consciousness of death… Continue reading Octavio Paz
Homero Aridjis
All happiness lasts but a moment, and the time that follows is only good for remembering what we have lost. — Homero Aridjis, Persephone (Vintage, 1986)
Manuel Ulacia
… indifference is fragile armour. — Manuel Ulacia (1953-2001), from “The Stone at the Bottom.” Poetry in Translation (archived) Translated by Sarah Lawson.
Coral Bracho
Firefly Under The Tongue I love you from the sharp tang of the fermentation; in the blissful pulp. Newborn insects, blue. In the unsullied juice, glazed and ductile. Cry that distills the light: through the fissures in fruit trees; under mossy water clinging to the shadows. The papillae, the grottos. In herbaceous dyes, instilled.… Continue reading Coral Bracho
The Vale of Soul-Making 