Poem of the day

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Octavio Paz

You spread out beneath my eyes,
a land of dunes--ocher, bright.
The wind in search of water stopped,
a land of heartbeats and fountains.
Vast as the night you fit
in the hollow of my hand.

Later, the motionless hurling down,
within and without ourselves.
With my eyes I ate darkness,
drank the water of time. I drank night.
Then I touched the body of a music
heard with the tips of my fingers.

Dark boats, together,
moored in the shadows,
our bodies reclined.
Our souls, unlashed,
lamps afloat
in the water of night.

In the end you opened your eyes.
You saw yourself seen by my eyes,
and from my eyes you saw yourself:
falling like a fruit on the grass,
like a stone in the pond,
you fell into yourself.

A tide rose within me,
like a weightless fist I beat
at the door of your lids:
my death wanted to meet you,
my death wanted to meet itself.
I was buried in your eyes.
* * *
Our bodies flow through the plains
of night: they are time wearing itself out,
a presence that dissolves in a caress;
yet they are infinite, to touch them
is to bathe in rivers of heartbeats
and return to the perpetual beginning anew.