El Poema / The Poem
A Octavio Paz
El poema gira sobre la cabeza de un hombre
en círculos ya próximos ya alejados
El hombre al descubrirlo trata de poseerlo
pero el poema desaparece
Con lo que el hombre puede asir
hace el poema
Lo que se le escapa
pertenece a los hombres futuros
*
For Octavio Paz
The poem spins over the head of a man in circles close now now far The man discovers it tries to possess it but the poem disappears The man makes his poem from whatever he can grasp That which escapes will belong to future men
From Eyes To See Otherwise / Ojos De Otro Mirar by Homero Aridjis. Copyright © 2001 by Homero Aridjis. Translation copyright © 2002 by Eliot Weinberger. Reprinted by permission of New Directions. All rights reserved.
Homero Aridjis
Writer, former ambassador, and environmental activist Homero Aridjis was born on April 6, 1940, in Contepec, Mexico, a small town in Michoacán state. He is the youngest of five sons. During the Mexican Revolution, Aridjis’s mother, Josefina Fuentes, narrowly eluded abduction by bandits when she was eight. His father, Nicias Aridjis, was a former captain in the Greek army. Nicias escaped from Smyrna shortly before Turkish soldiers ransacked the city, massacred local Greeks and Armenians, and set fire to the area.