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The doors of the year are open, like the doors of language, onto the unknown. Last night you said: tomorrow we must draw signs, sketch a landscape, hatch a plot on the unfolded page of paper and the day. Tomorrow we must invent, anew, the reality of this world. When I opened my eyes it was too late. For a second of a second I felt like the Aztec on the rock-strewn peak, watching the cracks of horizons for the uncertain return of time. Octavio Paz, in “A tree within”, 1987 (translated by Eliot Weinberger) A cloud in my hand wounds me. I don’t want from the earth more than this earth: the scent of cardamon and hay between my father and the horse In my hands is a cloud that wounded me. But I don’t want from the sun more than an orange seed and the gold that flowed from the call to prayer Mahmoud Darwish, in “Why did you leave the horse alone?”, 1995. (translated by Jeffrey Sacks) Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion. Dylan Thomas, in "Twenty-five poems", 1936. |