Water [excerpt, Beth Archer, tr.]
LIQUID, by definition, is
that which chooses to obey gravity
rather than maintain its form, which rejects all
form in order to obey gravity --
and which loses all dignity because of that
obsession, that pathological anxiety.
Because of that vice --
which makes it fast, flowing,
or stagnant, formless or fearsome, formless and
fearsome, piercingly fearsome in cases:
devious, filtering, winding --
one can do anything one
wants with it, even lead water
through pipes to make it spout out vertically,
so as to enjoy the way
it collapses in droplets:
a real slave.
The Pebble [excerpt, Cid Corman, tr.]
The great wheel of stone seems to us
practically immobile
and, even
theoretically we can understand
only a part of
the phase of its very slow
disintegration.
So much so that contrary to
common opinion which holds
it in the eyes of man as a symbol of
endurance and impassivity,
you can say in fact that
stone,
never re-forming in nature, is
in reality the only thing in it that dies,
constantly.
[my line endings]
Another Republic: 17 European and South American Writers
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