OBJECTS & APPARITIONS                                               

Octavio Paz                                                                                 

for Joseph Cornell

trans. Elizabeth Bishop

                                

Hexahedrons of wood and glass,

scarcely bigger than a shoebox,

with room in them for night and all its lights.

Monuments to every moment,

refuse of every moment, used:

cages for infinity.

Marbles, buttons, thimbles, dice,

pins, stamps, and glass beads:

tales of the time.

Memory weaves, unweaves the echoes:

in the four corners of the box

shadowless ladies play at hide-and-seek.

Fire buried in the mirror,

water sleeping in the agate:

solos of Jenny Colonne and Jenny Lind.

"One has to commit a painting," said Degas,

"the way one commits a crime." But you constructed

boxes where things hurry away from their names.

Slot machine of visions,

condensation flask for conversations,

hotel of crickets and constellations.

Minimal, incoherent fragments

the opposite of History, creator of ruins,

out of your ruins you have made creations.

Theater of the spirits:

objects putting the laws

of identity through hoops.

"Grand Hotel de la Couronne": in a vial,

the three of clubs and, very surprised,

Thumbelina in gardens of reflection.

A comb is a harp strummed by the glance

of a little girl

born dumb.

The reflector of the inner eye

scatters the spectacle:

God all alone above an extinct world.

The apparitions are manifest,

their bodies weigh less than light,

lasting as long as this phrase lasts.

Joseph Cornell: inside your boxes

my words became visible for a moment.

Originals Copyright © Octavio Paz; Trans. Copyright © New Yorker Magazine, Inc. 1974 - publ. New Directions Publishing Corp.