Certainty
If it is real the white
light from this lamp, real
the writing hand, are they
real, the eyes looking at what I write?
From one word to the other
what I say vanishes.
I know that I am alive
between two parentheses.
Certeza
Si es real la luz blanca
de esta lámpara, real
la mano que escribe, ¿son reales
los ojos que miran lo escrito?
De una palabra a la otra
lo que digo se desvanece.
Yo sé que estoy vivo
entre dos paréntesis.
by Octavio Paz
from The Collected Poems 1957-1987
Carcanet, 1983
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