Black Stone on Top of a White Stone by César Vallejo
César Vallejo was mentioned in The Summer Snow so I found a poem of his to post. I got the English translation (by Thomas Merton) here and the Spanish is here.
Black Stone on Top of a White Stone
By César Vallejo
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.
César 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…
