LITERARY GENIUS
I had a difficult time finding a work from a renowned Mexican author. My first thought was to include an excerpt from Don Quixote, but that story was written by a Spaniard. One reason there is a relative dearth of well-known Mexican writers is because Mexico wasn’t an independent nation until 1810 (Spain didn’t recognize this independence until 1821), and even then it was subject to the whims of other nations (e.g., the Mexican-American war of 1846-48 and the French occupation of the 1860s). What follows is an excerpt from a poem written by the first Mexican to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. It is based on the Aztec calendar (the Sunstone), which measured the synodic period of the planet Venus (584 days – the number of lines in the poem).

FROM PIEDRA DE SOL (SUNSTONE)
by Octavio Paz

a crystal willow, a poplar of water, a tall fountain the wind arches over, a tree deep-rooted yet dancing still, a course of a river that turns, moves on, doubles back, and comes full circle, forever arriving:                                   the calm course of the stars or an unhurried spring, water with eyes closed welling over with oracles all night long, a single presence in a surge of waves, wave after wave till it covers all, a reign of green that knows no decline, like the flash of wings unfolding in the sky, a path through the wilderness of days to come, and the gloomy splendor of misery like a bird whose song can turn a forest to stone, and the imminent joys on branches that vanish, the hours of light pecked away by the birds, and the omens that slip past the hand, a sudden presence like a burst of song, like the wind singing in a burning building, a glance that holds the world and all its seas and mountains dangling in the air, body of light filtered through an agate, thighs of light, belly of light, the bays, the solar rock, cloud-colored body, color of a brisk and leaping day, the hour sparkles and has a body, the world is visible through your body, transparent through your transparency,

un sauce de cristal, un chopo de agua, un alto surtidor que el viento arquea, un árbol bien plantado mas danzante, un caminar de río que se curva, avanza, retrocede, da un rodeo y llega siempre:                                   un caminar tranquilo de estrella o primavera sin premura, agua que con los párpados cerrados mana toda la noche profecías, unánime presencia en oleaje, ola tras ola hasta cubrirlo todo, verde soberanía sin ocaso como el deslumbramiento de las alas cuando se abren en mitad del cielo, un caminar entre las espesuras de los días futuros y el aciago fulgor de la desdicha como un ave petrificando el bosque con su canto y las felicidades inminentes entre las ramas que se desvanecen, horas de luz que pican ya los pájaros, presagios que se escapan de la mano, una presencia como un canto súbito, como el viento cantando en el incendio, una mirada que sostiene en vilo al mundo con sus mares y sus montes, cuerpo de luz filtrado por un ágata, piernas de luz, vientre de luz, bahías, roca solar, cuerpo color de nube, color de día rápido que salta, la hora centellea y tiene cuerpo, el mundo ya es visible por tu cuerpo, es transparente por tu transparencia,