Covintree holds a bachelor's degree in English and is currently pursuing a master of fine arts in writing at Emerson College. In this essay, Covintree explores the way Paz uses the Chinese system of the I Ching in this poem.

In 1951 and 1952, Paz made visits to India and Japan. Somewhere during this time, Paz was introduced to the first modern translation of the I Ching or Book of Changes, a book of wisdom and divination. This book fascinated Paz because, as he tells Joung Kwon Tae in the interview called " I Ching and Poetic Creation: An Interview with Octavio Paz," Paz believes the I Ching "brings together at once and in a single coherent and poetic time the changes of nature and with them those, the changes, of man. . . . man not alone but in relation to . . . society."

Paz's poem "Duration" from his book Salamander is an early...