Stolid

[rejectomorph]

Let the days on end fade and the landscape turn dark, and enjoy the balm of cool night air. Summer is things happening over and over with only the slightest variations to let you know that life has not become one long incident of deja vu. A few dry, brown oak leaves crunch underfoot as I cross the faded lawn. They increase in number each day. Most of the oak foliage remains above, providing shade and a rustling sound whenever a slight breeze favors us, which is too rarely. I sit in the shade and breathe hot air, and feel as though I have melted into the sullen and sultry earth. I feel as silent as the dirt.



Sunday Verse

The Arms of Summer

by Octavio Paz


Hear the throbbing of space
it is the steps of a season in heat
across the embers of the year

Murmer of wings and rattles
the far-off drumbeats of the storm
the crackling and panting of the earth
under its cape of roots and bugs

Thirst wakes and builds
great cages of glass
where your nakedness is water in chains
water that sings and breaks loose from its chains

Armed with the arms of summer
you come into my room come into my mind
and untie the river of language
look at yourself in these hurried words

Bit by bit the day burns out
over the erasing landscape
your shadow is a land of birds
the sun scatters with a wave

–translated by Eliot Weinberger

Comments

[rejectomorph]

Paz can make the nearly impossible look so easy.