1
The Sun, an eye.
If not a thinking eye, an igneous eye.
No one has gone so far as to call it
a living eye, a consciousness.
2
The total eye of the finite was her from the
beginning.
The eye of yellow thoughts
awakened the grays and greens.
The radiant eye of the daybreaks
wound up set into the instant.
The mythologies’ wingèd eye,
humming in the middle of the town square.
3
The ladder of light I go up
is the same one I come down now.
The white light raining down on us
comes from the Sun that has set.
Even in the dark I am staring at you,
even blindly I take you in with open palms.
Oh, yellow seed,
Oh air wearing white light
4
Which god besotted with light
thought up this yellow splendor
within the confines of the universe?
What mad eye stayed open
poring over this glory
within the limits of itself?
5
In the hallucinatory silence,
an eye gained a shape and a nothing.
In some part of your head
light’s dream has begun.
6
I hear the jingle of keys
opening the doors to the light,
and bathed in sun,
everything I behold is shadow.
7
After so many rainy
days the Sun appeared
floating in the firmament,
and under a dark cloud
its golden fingers
shed light on the Earth
8
Does the solar eye dream of the Earth
sear everything with its senses
or do we dream the eye that sears us
dream us?
Are we inside the living eye
that thinks us and watches over us
or are we—as it is—passing images
in the head of a god unknown?
Aridjis, Homero. "Variations on a Solar Theme." Poemas solares: Solar Poems. Trans. George McWhirter. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2010. pp. 31-37.