Octavio Paz: "Wind, Water, Stone"

for Roger Caillois

Water hollows stone,

wind scatters water,

stone stops the wind.

Water, wind, stone.



Wind carves stone,

stone's a cup of water,

water escapes and is wind.

Stone, wind, water.



Wind sings in its whirling,

water murmurs going by,

unmoving stone keeps still.

Wind, water, stone.



One is another and no other:

crossing and vanishing
through their empty names:

water, stone, wind.

"Wind, Water, Stone" by Octavio Paz, from The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987, edited by Eliot Weinberger. Translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger, et al. © New Directions Publishing, 1991.  

Photography credit: "Wind- and water-carved stone in the Weather Pit Ridge, located near Lake Powell, Utah," by Darrell Staggs (originally color).