:: draft of the shadow

Between leaving and staying.

A solid transparence, the day
is caught between leaving and staying,

all of it seen but elusive,
the horizon an untouchable neraness.

Papers on the table, a book, a glass-
things rest in the shadow of their names.

The blood in my veins rises more and more slowly
and repeats its obstinate syllable within my temples.

The light makes no choices,now changing a wall
that merely exists in time without history.

The afternoon spreads, is already a bay ;
its quiet motions are rocking the world.
We are neither asleep nor awake:
we merely are, merely stay.

The moment is falling from itself, pausing,
becoming the passage through which we continue.

Octavio Paz. A Draft of Shadows