"An arrow pierces the universe." (Juarroz)

_ _ _

An arrow pierces the universe.

It doesn't matter who shot it.

It crosses equally fluid and solid,

visible and invisible.

Trying to figure out where it's going would be

like imagining a wall around nothing.

Arrow from the anonymous to the anonymous,

from a void that isn't its origin

toward another void that isn't its destination.

Movement not resembling movement

but ecstasy constantly renewed.

I find the arrow in your hand

or you find it in my thought.

I can see it entering a cloud,

cutting a bird in two,

emerging from flowers and rains,

splitting a blindness,

penetrating the dead.

Perhaps its model anonymity

summons us to our own anonymity,

to be able also to liberate ourselves

from our beginning and our end.

(for Laura)

- Roberto Juarroz, tr. by Mary Crow