Brotherhood
Brotherhood by Octavio Paz
I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment
someone spells me out.
Notes:
* Octavio Paz was a Mexican poet, diplomat and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
* He wrote this poem to Ptolemy, who wrote one of the most influential astronomy texts of the ancient world.
* As Octavio wrote it, it’s speculated that he felt a common sense of smallness and submission to a greater supernatural force that he believed Ptolemy would’ve related to.