The Daily Fire
As the air
…………….. constructs and destroys
invisible buildings
on the pages of geology,
on the planetary mesas:
………………………………… man.
His language is barely a seed,
yet it burns
………………. in the palm of space.
Syllables are incandescent,
and they are plants:
……………………………. their roots
fracture silence,
……………………… their branches
build houses of sound.
……………………,…………. Syllables:
they twine and untwine,
………………………………….. play
at likeness and unlikeness.
Syllables:
……………. they ripen in the mind,
flower in the mouth.
…………………………… Their roots
drink night, eat light.
……………………………. Languages:
trees incandescent
with leaves of rain.
Lightning vegetation,
geometries of echoes:
on a sheet of paper
the poem builds itself
…………………………….. as the day
on the palm of space.
by Octavio Paz
from The Collected Poems 1957-1987
Carcanet, 1987
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