From Sunstone, By OCTAVIO PAZ

I search without finding, I write alone,

there’s no one here, and the day falls,

the year falls, I fall with the moment,

I fall to the depths, invisible path

over mirrors repeating my shattered image,

I walk through the days, the trampled moments,

I walk through all the thoughts of my shadow,

I walk through my shadow in search of a moment,

I search for an instant alive as a bird,

for the sun of five in the afternoon

tempered by walls of porous stone:

the hour ripened its cluster of grapes,

and bursting, girls spilled out from the fruit,

scattering in the cobblestone patios of the school,

one was tall as autumn and walked

through the arcades enveloped in light,

and space encircled, dressed her in a skin

even more golden and transparent,

tiger the color of light, brown deer

on the outskirts of night, girl glimpsed

leaning over green balconies of rain,

adolescent incalculable face,

I’ve forgotten your name, Melusina,

Laura, Isabel, Persephone, Mary,

your face is all the faces and none,

you are all the hours and none,

you’re a tree and a cloud, all the birds

and a single star, the edge of the sword

and the executioner’s bowl of blood,

the ivy that creeps, envelops, uproots

the soul, and severs it from itself . . .

The poem “Sunstone” (“Piedra de sol”), from which this is an excerpt, appears in “The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987” (New Directions: $15.95, paper; 669 pp.), a bilingual Spanish-English edition with an introduction by Eliot Weinberger. 1986 Octavio Paz and Eliiot Weinberger. Reprinted with permission.