Black Stone on a White Stone by César Vallejo
I've turned back, with all of my road, to see myself alone.
Black Stone on a White Stone
by César Vallejo 1
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. . .
1
Source: Poetry (April 2008). Translated by Rebecca Seiferle.
Vallejo is one of my favorites and an influence on my own writing.
This translation of an amazing poem that Robert Hass, Robert Bly and many others have translated beautifully really doesn't do it justice. In a column years ago Hass invited his readers to try their hand at it. You can see the original Spanish and my translation here: https://www.merylnatchez.com/literature-2/poetry/the-fascination-of-translation#more-1084