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| Bliss. |
A prolific surrealist and existentialist, Octavio Paz was awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature. He was born, and died, in Mexico City. In the span of his life, he was a writer/poet, spent time in New York while exiled with his family, and was a Mexican diplomat. Amongst a host of other things...the most insignificant of which is the title of "Jess's favorite poet."
I usually take Paz with me on vacation, and this trip is no exception.
This morning was glorious. We drank coffee on the deck overlooking the ocean. The hummingbirds buzzed around the trees. Yellow butterflies floated on the salty sea air drifting up the mountains. When the records stopped spinning, there was no sound save the wind in the trees.
Paz grounds me. Reading him in his native Mexico, where color and sensuality drench the earth, grounds me even more.
Over the next week I will likely share a few of his poems, this one couldn't have been more perfect for this morning. I will refrain from personal analysis, as you should see how the lines speak to you for yourself.
(Untitled)
At daybreak the newborn goes looking for a name
Upon the sleep-filled bodies the light glitters
The mountains gallop to the shore of the sea
The sun with his spurs on is entering the waves
Stony attack shattering clarities
The sea resists rearing to the horizon
Confusion of land imminence of sculpture
The naked forehead of the world is raised
Rock smoothed and polished to cut a poem on
Display of light that opens its fan of names
Here is the seed of a singing like a tree
Here are the wind and names beautiful in the wind
-Octavio Paz, Semillas Para Un Himno (Translated by Muriel Rukeyser)
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| Breakfast. AMAZING! |
Thank you, thank you...to a man I never met, for sharing his view of the world through his verse.
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| Paz's Nobel Diploma |
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