Saturday poems: Between going and staying

Octavio Paz

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 theatre 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

Poetry in the Library The third Thursday of each month is the date for local poets and poetry lovers to meet in the Castlemaine Library, 4-6 pm.