interval

Instantaneous architectures

hanging over a pause,

apparitions neither named

nor thought, wind-forms,

insubstantial as time

and, like time, dissolved.

Made of time, they are not time;

they are the cleft, the interstice,

the brief vertigo of between

where the diaphanous flower opens:

high on its stalk of a reflection

it vanishes as it turns.

Never touched, the clarities

seen with the eyes closed:

transparent birth

and the crystalline fall

in the instant of this instant

that forever is still here.

Outside the window, the desolate

rooftops and the hurrying clouds.

The day goes out, the city

lights up, remote and near.

Weightless hour. I breathe

the moment, empty and eternal.

~ Octavio Paz

translation by Eliot Weinberger

with thanks again to growing-orbits