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Black Stone Lying On A White Stone 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.  César 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. . . By César Vallejo (1892 - 1938), translated and edited by Robert Bly, and published by Beacon Press in Neruda & Vallejo: Selected Poems. © 1971 by Robert Bly. *** *** *** The Black Riders There are blows in life so violent-I can't answer! Blows as if from the hatred of God; as if before them, the deep waters of everything lived through were backed up in the soul. . . I can't answer! Not many; but they exist. . . They open dark ravines in the most ferocious face and in the most bull-like back. Perhaps they are the horses of that heathen Attila, or the black riders sent to us by Death. They are the slips backward made by the Christs of the soul, away from some holy faith that is sneered at by Events. These blows that are bloody are the crackling sounds from some bread that burns at the oven door. And man . . . poor man! . . . poor man! He swings his eyes, as when a man behind us calls us by clapping his hands; swings his crazy eyes, and everything alive is backed up, like a pool of guilt, in that glance. There are blows in life so violent . . . I can't answer! By César Vallejo (1892 - 1938), translated by Robert Bly reprinted from Neruda and Vallejo by Robert Bly. Copyright @1971,1993 by Robert Bly. Los Heraldos Negros Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes... ¡Yo no sé! Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos, la resaca de todo lo sufrido se empozara en el alma... ¡Yo no sé! Son pocos; pero son... Abren zanjas oscuras en el rostro más fiero y en el lomo más fuerte. Serán tal vez los potros de bárbaros Atilas; o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte. Son las caídas hondas de los Cristos del alma de alguna fe adorable que el Destino blasfema. Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema. Y el hombre... Pobre... ¡pobre! Vuelve los ojos, como cuando por sobre el hombro nos llama una palmada; vuelve los ojos locos, y todo lo vivido se empoza, como charco de culpa, en la mirada. Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes... ¡Yo no sé! Lee todo en: Los heraldos negros - Poemas de César Vallejo http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/los-heraldos-negros.htm#ixzz3thw6e­4yJ *** *** *** Vallejo was born on March 16, 1892 in a small Andean mining town in northern Peru. He had Indian and Spanish blood on both sides. His poetry shows tremendous feeling for his mother, the emotional center of his religious childhood, for his father, a notary who wanted him to become a priest, and for his 10 older brothers and sisters. He graduated from the University of Trujillo in 1915, with a thesis on romanticism in Spanish poetry.  (Taken from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2003/12/14/cesar-vallejos-poems-have-a/6c222ac8-10db-47f2-99c2-5da91b3bf7a5/)