THE LAST DAYS OF OCTAVIO PAZ

Mexico City, dusk,

he watches wide eyed

as a great conflagration

devours his house, his life’s

possessions, the years

of manuscripts, poems finished

and unfinished, the Aztec mask,

the Picasso, chairs

of his ancestors, photos from childhood,

the joyous dome, its ribbed beams and rafters,

everything turning to ash

in a whirling column of fire.

The flames blaze on,

charring night,

lick the black wings

soaring from his poems,

consume the leaden hours,

human illusion, human desire,

wish and ambition,

emptiness and ash—

all crackling in a fire

come late in life,

as the firemen shout in the choking dark,

fleeting shadows.

So late, so late

but now set free

from long affliction,

Octavio Paz will sit once more

beside a Paris street,

dry leaves scuttling silent at his feet,

a far off light

dawning on his brow.