El mediodía anida en tu tímpano.—Octavio Paz





In one of his letters, a poet claimed that it's wrong to say, I think.

Stating that, instead, a person should say, I am thought.



I think he meant that we must be skeptical towards the actuality of anything

(save for our own thoughts),

questioning even our senses, even our physical beings.



Therefore, I am thought.



Someone who is dead said that.

This is solipsism, not metaphor.



During a poet's lifetime, the criticism of their work (if any) can be paraphrased:

Clay mountains molded

and then painted with the brushstrokes of a whimper.



Some people only read poets once they're dead.



News of your death placed me alone amongst

bookshelves, end of morning.



There is nothing that can be known as absolute.



Outside, an oak tree shivered

in a wind

like an oak tree shivering in a wind.



There were probably sounds the birds in that tree were murmuring.



Someone once called such sounds song;

now everyone calls such sounds songs—birdsongs.



But, because birds register an interval between octaves which exceeds twelve notes

(ignorant to key and scale), birdsong merely resembles music.

Birdsong is a human projection, wanting the mundane to be more beautiful.



I remember that morning being cloudy, the room sunlit to gray.