Poem for Wednesday and Kirkland Waterfront

Wind, Water, Stone
By Octavio Paz
Translated by Eliot Weinberger

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.

Each is another and no other:
crossing and vanishing
through their empty names:
water, stone, wind.

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Wednesday was another spectacularly beautiful day, so after a morning chat with my high school friends and some early afternoon unpacking, we went to pick up our new license plates in Kirkland, then went to the waterfront there. The last time I walked around that area, it was so cold we couldn't stand in the wind, but today we had a beautiful breeze and lovely views of the boats and seabirds in Lake Washington. 

 

We walked around some stores, including Eastside Trains with its big model tracks, then we went to Cactus for dinner and got the butternut squash enchiladas and jackfruit chimichanga, both of which were great. When we came back, we walked out along the dock to see the eagles and now we're watching Silo, which I'm enjoying a lot -- good acting and reasonably interesting mystery.