The given is ground.
You are bound by it
as the eyes are bound – by a frame of
nearnesses
surrounding things half-seen
: thick, bare
calligraphy and confusion of boughs on air :
It is given, the confusion of the trees
of infinitesimal particles of dust
flies on the grain of paper,
grasses
mouths blank
in the ground of sight :
Confused, you come back,
confusion diffused,
uncertain insect,
scabies for each of my eyelids, sword for
the iris, bare
scene : your navel is the eye of my tree, wide
landscape of chains, of whips,
hypodermic for my vein :
ground, trees, thickets, navel,
fixed ray
(Ares and Eros) : the writing breathes –
nuptial sea.
From Renga, A Chain of Poems
by Octavio Paz, Jacques Roubaud, Eduardo Sanguinetti, Charles Tomlinson
(translations by Charles Tomlinson). New
York, George Braziller, 1971.
