Between Going and Staying
Between Going and Staying - meaning Summary
Between Movement and Stillness
Paz's poem describes a liminal moment between leaving and remaining, where day and self hover in uncertainty. Ordinary objects and light become signs that both reveal and elude reality. The speaker experiences doubled perception—observing and being observed—so time and motion fracture into a suspended pause. The poem centers on the paradox of presence: being simultaneously rooted and mobile, attentive yet unable to fully grasp what is near.
Read Complete AnalysesBetween going and staying the day wavers, in love with its own transparency. The circular afternoon is now a bay where the world in stillness rocks. All is visible and all elusive, all is near and can’t be touched. Paper, book, pencil, glass, rest in the shade of their names. Time throbbing in my temples repeats the same unchanging syllable of blood. The light turns the indifferent wall into a ghostly theatre of reflections. I find myself in the middle of an eye, watching myself in its blank stare. The moment scatters. Motionless, I stay and go: I am a pause.
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