Octavio Paz

Native Stone

For Roger Afunier

Native Stone - meaning Summary

Light Dissolves Identity

Paz’s poem contrasts light and stone to explore consciousness, solitude, and the erosion of identity. Vast desert and insomnia imagery evoke an external, relentless brightness that surrounds and thins perception. The speaker invites an inward turn—closing the eyes to hear light, then reopening to find absence: no stable self remains. The final claim, that whatever is not stone is light, suggests a dissolution of boundaries between inner life and elemental being.

Read Complete Analyses

Light is laying waste the heavens Droves of dominions in stampede The eye retreats surrounded by mirrors Landscapes enormous as insomnia Stony ground of bone Limitless autumn Thirst lifts its invisible fountains One last peppertree preaches in the desert Close your eyes and hear the light singing: Noon nests in your inner ear Close your eyes and open them: There is nobody not even yourself Whatever is not stone is light

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