Black Stone Lying On A White Stone

Translated by Robert Bly

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.

Cesar 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…