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Un cuerpo vivo aunque intangible el aire,
en todas partes siempre y en ninguna.
Duerme con los ojos abiertos,
se acuesta entre las yerbas y amanece rocío,
se persigue a sí mismo y habla solo en los túneles,
es un tornillo que perfora montes,
nadador en la mar brava del fuego
es invisible surtidor de ayes,
levanta a pulso dos océanos,
anda perdido por las calles
palabra en pena en busca de sentido,
aire que se disipa en aire.
¿Y para qué digo todo esto?
...
...
A body, living but intangible, the air
in all places always and in none.
It sleeps with open eyes,
it lies down in the grass and wakes up as dew,
it chases itself, talks to itself in tunnels,
is a bit that drills into mountains,
a swimmer in the rough seas of fire,
an invisible fountain of laments,
it lifts two oceans with a hand,
and walks through the streets, lost,
a word in limbo in search of meaning,
air that vanishes in search of meaning,
air that vanishes into air.
And why do I say all this?
...
Octavio Paz, from
"Pasado en Claro" ("A Draft of Shadows")
[The Paz text above is translated by Eliot Weinberger and can be found in New Directions' The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987.]
We'd like to welcome especially our new subscribers in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Spain, Iceland, Russia, India... to the third issue of The Transcendental Friend.
Divine Love, impersonal Force, third Eye--"Grace" is this month's entry in the Critical Dictionary, by Jonathan Skinner.
This month's Bestiary, edited by Eleni Sikelianos, features work by Alice Notley, J. Skinner, and Marcella Durand.
While the Dialectic returns from vacation with a snapshot of ontological equivocation, Report and Review are talking it easy this month in preparation for next month's expanded Summer issue. The Dialectic was perceived--and captured--in the moment of its realization by Duncan Dobbelmann.
Mote takes an existing text--an excerpt from The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk--as a ground for layers of response by subsequent authors. This month's layer, "Devoured, Cleansed", is by Heather Ramsdell. (The links in Pamuk's text allow you to switch back and forth between this layer and the previous one by Leonard Schwartz.)
This issue's Project --"Forms and Hand-Carved Panels"--is by an anonymous artisan.
The first and second issues of the Friend are available from the Files page. (Some archival & other materials will also be made available from this page in the near future.)
For general and contact information turn to the Contact page. And if you haven't done so already, please take a moment to Subscribe to the Friend (it's free).
Garrett Kalleberg, Editor