LOVE THEY KEPT CRYING (RENGA)

Love they kept crying love swiftness

already at rest     love the unmoving

in full flight --- the gravity of speed:

Half of the water grew dark     half

of the air     a black round entered the water

and night was half a lake:

And love, a command no more, to each one

the way lies clear through the comity of vine, of stone:

(through places that are years, before lit-up show windows

which are dialogues split-off from montage:  you return, once

     more, by the rue du

Dragon, you come down your stairs: )

From Renga, A Chain of Poems by Octavio Paz, Jacques Roubaud, Eduardo Sanguinetti, Charles Tomlinson (translations by Charles Tomlinson).  New York, George Braziller, 1971.

Top illustration:  Dora Maar, The Pretender, Photo-collage, 1936.

Bottom illustration: Eugene Atget, Staircase, ca. 1900-1910.