Black Stone on a White Stone

I will die in Paris in a rainstorm, 

a day I already have in my memory.

I will die in Paris—and I won’t run away—

maybe a Thursday, like today, in autumn.

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prose 

these verses, I’ve put my humerus bones

on wrong, and never as today have I turned back,

on every one of my roads, to see myself alone.

César Vallejo is dead, they beat him

without his doing a thing to them;

they hit him hard with a stick and hard

with a rope too; his witnesses

the Thursdays, the humerus bones,

the solitude, the rain, the roads.

César Vallejo, “Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca”

Translation by Jack Hayes

© 2017

Image Links to its Source on Wiki Commons:

Fotografia de César Vallejo en el Parque de Versalles: Photo by Juan Domingo Córdoba - Photo restoration: John Manuel Kennedy T. 1929

Public domain.