The Fire of Every Day


As the air
               forms and unforms
over pages of geometry,
over planetary mesas,
its invisible buildings:
                               man.
His language is hardly a grain,
though it burns,
                     in the palm of space.

Syllables are incandescences.
They also are plants:
                                   their roots
construct dwellings of sound.
                                            Syllables
entangle and disentangle,
                                     they play
at similarities and dissimilarities.

Syllables:
               mature in foreheads,
flourish in mouths.
                              Their roots
drink in the night, consume light.
                                        Languages:
incandescent trees
of foliage and rain.

Lightning strike vegetations,
geometries of echos:
over a sheet of paper
the poem forms
                        like the day
over the palm of space.

Octavio Paz