Roberto Juarroz

My favorite poet lately has been the Argentine poet Juarroz, author of fourteen books of poetry, all entitled, Vertical Poetry. There is a contemplative beauty and wisdom in his words that parallels the intentions behind my still life work and my own poetry. He has a great eye -- and love -- for "the being / of what isn't." Here is an English translation by Mary Crow, of his eleventh poem (none of his poems are titled) from his ninth collection:

Each thing is a message,
a pulse that reveals itself,
a trap door in the emptiness.

But between the messages of things
other messages get sketched,
there in the interval,
between one thing and another,
shaped by things or their absence,
as if what is
should decide involuntarily the being
of what isn't.

To find those intermediary messages,
the form that is formed among the forms,
is to complete the code.
Or perhaps to discover it.

To find the rose
that remains among the roses.

Even though they aren't roses.