Black Stone on a White Stone I will die in Paris with a rainstorm,on a day I already remember,I will die in Paris—and I don’t shy away—perhaps on a Thursday, as today is, in autumn. It will be Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prosethese lines, I’ve put on my humeri in a bad… Continue reading César Vallejo
If I have sung a lot, I have cried even more for you-oh my sublime parable of love! Remain in the brain, and in the immense myth of my heart! — César Vallejo, from “For the Impossible Soul of My Lover,” The Complete Poetry (University of California Press, 2007)
Moon: it is no use flying anyway, so you go up in a flame of scattered opals: maybe you are my heart, who is like a gypsy, who loafs in the sky, shedding poems like tears! — César Vallejo, from “A Divine Falling of Leaves,” trans. James Wright,Co llected Poems: James Wright (Wesleyan University Press,… Continue reading César Vallejo
Moon! Crown of an immense head, which you keep shedding in golden shadows! Red crown of a Jesus who thinks tragically sweet of emeralds! Moon! Maddened celestial heart —why are you rowing like this, inside the cup full of blue wine, toward the west, such a defeated and aching stern? Moon! And by flying off… Continue reading César Vallejo
Because you love so much; / because you never smile; because your heart / must always ache so much. — César Vallejo, The Black Heralds, trans. Clayton Eshleman, The Complete Poetry (University of California Press, 2007)
If I have sung a lot, I have cried even more for you-oh my sublime parable of love! Remain in the brain, and in the immense myth of my heart! — César Vallejo, from “For the Impossible Soul of My Lover,” The Complete Poetry (University of California Press, 2007)
I will die in Paris with a rainstorm, on a day I already remember, I will die in Paris—and I don’t shy away— perhaps on a Thursday, as today is, in autumn. It will be Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prose these lines, I’ve put on my humeri in a bad mood, and,… Continue reading César Vallejo
An odor of time lingers fertilized by verses, for the shoots of consecrated marble that would inherit the auriferous song of the lark rotting in my heart! — César Vallejo, from “Prayer on the Road,” The Complete Poetry (University of California Press, 2007)
The Vale of Soul-Making 