César Vallejo / The black heralds

César Vallejo

The black heralds

by César Vallejo

Biography

César Vallejo / Los heraldos negros

There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don't know!

Blows as from God's hatred; as if before them,

the backlash of everything suffered

were to dam up in the soul . . . I don't know!

They are few; but they are . . . They open dark furrows

in the fiercest face and in the strongest side.

Maybe they could be the horses of barbarous Attilas;

or the black heralds Death sends us.

They are the deep abysses of the soul's Christs,

of some revered faith Destiny blasphemes.

Those gory blows are the cracklings of a bread

that burns-up on us at the oven's door.

And man . . . Poor . . . poor! He turns his eyes,

as when a slap on the shoulder calls us;

he turns his crazed eyes, and everything lived

is dammed up, like a pond of guilt, in his gaze.

There are blows in life, so powerful . . . I don't know!

César Vallejo / Black Stone on Top of a White Stone

BLACK STONE ON TOP

OF A WHITE STONE

By César Vallejo
Biography

César Vallejo / Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca (De otros mundos)

César Vallejo / Pedra negra sobre uma pedra branca (Pessoa)

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,
On a day I already remember.
I shall die in Paris it does not bother me
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in Autumn.

It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday
As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders
To the evil. Never like today have I turned,
And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.

Cesar Vallejo is dead. They struck him,
All of them, though he did nothing to them,
They hit him hard with a stick and hard also
With the end of a rope. Witnesses are: the Thursdays,
The shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads...

César Vallejo / Paris, October 1936

Gésar Vallejo and Georgette Marie Phillipart

Paris, October 1936

by César Vallejo
Biography

César Vallejo / París, octubre 1936

From all of this I am the only one who leaves.
From this bench I go away, from my pants,
from my great situation, from my actions,
from my number split side to side,
from all of this I am the only one who leaves.

From the Champs Elysees or as the strange
alley of the Moon makes a turn,
my death goes away, my cradle leaves,
and, surrounded by people, alone, cut loose,
my human resemblance turns around
and dispatches its shadows one by one.

And I move away from everything, since everything

remains to create my alibi:
my shoe, its eyelet, as well as its mud
and even the bend in the elbow
of my own buttoned shirt.

César Vallejo / To My Brother Miguel In Memoriam

TO MY BROTHER MIGUEL 

IN MEMORIAM

By César Vallejo
Biography

Brother, today I sit on the brick bench of the house,
where you make a bottomless emptiness.
I remember we used to play at this hour, and mama
caressed us: "But, sons..."

Now I go hide
as before, from all evening
lectures, and I trust you not to give me away.
Through the parlor, the vestibule, the corridors.
Later, you hide, and I do not give you away.
I remember we made ourselves cry,
brother, from so much laughing.

Miguel, you went into hiding
one night in August, toward dawn,
but, instead of chuckling, you were sad.
And the twin heart of those dead evenings
grew annoyed at not finding you. And now
a shadow falls on my soul.

Listen, brother, don't be late
coming out. All right? Mama might worry.