Black Stone Lying On A White Stone | Academy of American Poets

Black Stone Lying On A White Stone - by Cesar Vallejo  | Academy of American Poets:


Black Stone Lying On A White Stone

   I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris--and I don’t step aside--
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.

   It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down
these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on 
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.

   César Vallejo is dead.  Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also

   with a rope.  These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .                  / oh  _  _

trans R Bly  ~   but read this first and it is my.  more than:
Black Stone on a White Stone by Cesar Vallejo : Poetry Magazine
Translated By Rebecca Seiferle  
Read the translator's notes                 <<<

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