Black Stone on a White Stone

Translated by Rebecca Seiferle
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. . .
More Poems by César Vallejo