Octavio Paz ... and I kept trying!

Today a friend asked me if I knew this poem by Ocatvio Paz:

Imprisoned by four walls
(to the North, the crystal of non-knowledge
a landscape to be invented
to the South, reflective memory
to the East, the mirror
to the West, stone and the song of silence)

I wrote messages, but received no reply.

He saw the context of it as knowledge sharing networks - reaching for your virtual world, knowing there is some "invisible" knowledge but needing to create a landscape to be invented.

I see the poem also as a search for identity.

Today the guy from Cabovisão asked me if I intended to to back to my "terra". I thought of the terra I have on my varandah. Was he asking me if I was going back to work on my plants? I found it helpful to remind myself of my friend's suggestion that "Stone and the song of silence" was about the need for meditation and metaphor.

I've made my addition to the last line of Octavio Paz' beautiful poem:

I wrote messages, but received no reply.
So I kept trying!

Tags: identity, terra