POEM
Black Stone on a White Stone
I will die in Paris with a rainstorm,
on a day I already remember,
I will die in Paris—and I don't shy away—
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is, in autumn.
It will be Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prose
these lines, I've put on my humeri in a bad mood,
and, today like never before, I've turned back,
with all of my road, to see myself alone.
César Vallejo has died; they kept hitting him,
everyone, even though he does nothing to them,
they gave it to him hard with a club and hard
also with a rope; witnesses are
the Thursday days and the humerus bones,
the solitude, the rain, the roads. . .
Translated by Rebecca Seiferle
Source: Poetry (April 2008).
This poem originally appeared in the April 2008 issue of Poetry.
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Peruvian expatriate Cesar Vallejo was a major poet, known for the authenticity and . . . MORE »
