VOY A HABLAR DE LA ESPERANZA.

Yo no sufro este dolor como Cesar Vallejo. Yo no me duelo ahora como artista, como hombre ni como simple ser vivo siquiera. Yo no sufro este dolor como catlico, como mahometano ni como ateo. Hoy sufro solamente. Si no me llamase Cesar Vallejo, tambien sufrira este mismo dolor. Si no fuese artista, tambien lo sufrira. Si no fuese catlico, ateo ni mahometano, tambien lo sufrira. Hoy sufro desde ms abajo. Hoy sufro solamente.

Me duelo ahora sin explicaciones. Mi dolor es tan hondo, que no tuvo ya causa ni carece de causa. Que sera su causa? Dnde est aquello tan importante, que dejase de ser su causa? Nada es su causa ; nada ha podido dejar de ser su causa. A que ha nacido este dolor, por s mismo? Mi dolor es del viento del norte y del viento del sur, como esos huevos neutros que algunas aves raras ponen del viento. Si hubiera muerto mi novia, mi dolor sera igual. Si me hubieran cortado el cuello de raz, mi dolor sera igual. Si la vida fuese, en fin, de otro modo, mi dolor sera igual. Hoy sufro desde ms arriba. Hoy sufro solamente.

Miro el dolor del hambriento y veo que su hambre anda tan lejos de mi sufrimiento, que de quedarme ayuno hasta morir, saldra siempre de mi tumba una brizna de yerba al menos. Lo mismo el enamorado! Que sangre la suya ms engendrada, para la ma sin fuente ni consumo!

Yo crea hasta ahora que todas las cosas del universo eran, inevitablemente, padres o hijos. Pero he aqu que mi dolor de hoy no es padre ni es hijo. Le falta espalda para anochecer, tanto como le sobra pecho para amanecer y si lo pusiesen en la estancia oscura, no dara luz y si lo pusiesen en una estancia luminosa, no echara sombra. Hoy sufro suceda lo que suceda. Hoy sufro solamente.

I AM GOING TO TALK ABOUT HOPE.

I do not feel this suffering as Cesar Vallejo. I am not suffering now as a creative person, or as a man, nor even as a simple living being. I don't feel this pain as a Catholic, or as a Mohammedan, or as an atheist. Today I am simply in pain. If my name weren't Cesar Vallejo, I'd still feel it. If I weren't an artist, I'd still feel it. If I weren't a man, or even a living being, I'd still feel it. If I weren't a Catholic, or an atheist, or a Mohammedan, I'd still feel it. Today I am in pain from further down. Today I am simply in pain.

The pain I have has no explanations. My pain is so deep that it never had a cause, and has no need of a cause. What could its cause have been? Where is that thing so important that it stopped being its cause? Its cause is nothing, and nothing could have stopped being its cause. Why has this pain been born all on its own? My pain comes from the north wind and from the south wind, like those hermaphrodite eggs that some rare birds lay conceived of the wind. If my bride were dead, my suffering would still be the same. If they had slashed my throat all the way through, my suffering would still be the same. If life, in other words, were different, my suffering would still be the same. Today I'm in pain from higher up. Today I am simply in pain.

I look at the hungry man's pain, and I see that his hunger walks somewhere so far from my pain that if I fasted until death, one blade of gra.s.s at least would always sprout from my grave. And the same with the lover! His blood is too fertile for mine, which has no source and no one to drink it.

I always believed up till now that all things in the world had to be either fathers or sons. But here is my pain that is neither a father nor a son. It hasn't any back to get dark, and it has too bold a front for dawning, and if they put it into some dark room, it wouldn't give light, and if they put it into some brightly lit room, it wouldn't cast a shadow. Today I am in pain, no matter what happens. Today I am simply in pain.

Translated by Robert Bly

Quedeme a calentar la tinta en que me ahogo

y a escuchar mi caverna alternativa,

noches de tacto, das de abstraccin.

Se estremeci la incgnita en mi amgdala

y cruj de una anual melancola,

noches de sol, das de luna, ocasos de Pars.

Y todava, hoy mismo, al atardecer, digiero sacratsimas constancias, noches de madre, das de biznieta bicolor, voluptuosa, urgente, linda.

Y an alcanzo, llego hasta m en avin de dos asientos, bajo la manana domestica y la bruma que emergi eternamente de un instante.

Y todava, an ahora, al cabo del cometa en que he ganado mi bacilo feliz y doctoral, he aqu que caliente, oyente, tierro, sol y luno, incgnito atravieso el cementerio, tomo a la izquierda, hiendo la yerba con un par de endecaslabos, anos de tumba, litros de infinito, tinta, pluma, ladrillos y perdones.

24 septiembre 1937

I stayed here, warming the ink in which I drown,

and listening to my other cavern, nights of touch, days of mental drifting.

Something unknown quivered in my tonsils, and I creaked with my annual melancholy, nights of sunlight, days of moonlight, sunsets of Paris.

And yet, even today, at the fall of evening, I digest the most holy loyalties, nights of the mother, days of the great-granddaughter, two-colored, voluptuous, urgent, charming.

Nevertheless I do come abreast, I overtake myself in a two-seater airplane, under the domestic morning, and the fog that crept out of a second forever and ever.

And yet, even now, inside the tail of the comet in which I've won my happy PhD germ, here I am, burning, listening, masculine-earthlike, sunlike, masculine-moonlike, I cross the graveyard unrecognized, swerve to the left, cutting the gra.s.s with a pair of hendecasyllabics, years in the sepulcher, liters of infinity, ink, pen, bricks, and forgivings.

Translated by James Wright

and Robert Bly

POEMA PARA SER LEIDO Y CANTADO.

Se que hay una persona que me busca en su mano, da y noche, encontrndome, a cada minuto, en su calzado.

Ignora que la noche est enterrada con espuelas detrs de la cocina?

Se que hay una persona compuesta de mis partes, a la que integro cuando va mi talle cabalgando en su exacta piedrecilla.

Ignora que a su cofre no volver moneda que sali con su retrato?

Se el da, pero el sol se me ha escapado; se el acto universal que hizo en su cama con ajeno valor y esa agua tibia, cuya superficial frecuencia es una mina.

Tan pequena es, acaso, esa persona, que hasta sus propios pies as la pisan?

Un gato es el lindero entre ella y yo, al lado mismo de su taza de agua.

La veo en las esquinas, se abre y cierra su veste, antes palmera interrogante . .

Que podr hacer sino cambiar de llanto?

Pero me busca y busca. Es una historia!

POEM TO BE READ AND SUNG.

I know there is someone looking for me day and night inside her hand, and coming upon me, each moment, in her shoes.

Doesn't she know the night is buried with spurs behind the kitchen?

I know there is someone composed of my pieces, whom I complete when my waist goes galloping on her precise little stone.

Doesn't she know that money once out for her likeness never returns to her trunk?

I know the day, but the sun has escaped from me ; I know the universal act she performed in her bed with some other woman's bravery and warm water, whose shallow recurrence is a mine.

Is it possible this being is so small even her own feet walk on her that way?

A cat is the border between us two, right there beside her bowl of water.

I see her on the corners, her dress-once an inquiring palm tree-opens and closes .

What can she do but change her style of weeping?

But she does look and look for me. This is a real story!

Translated by James Wright

and Robert Bly

PIEDRA NEGRA SOBRE UNA PIEDRA BLANCA.

Me morire en Paris con aguacero, un da del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.

Me morire en Paris-y no me corro- tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otono.

Jueves ser, porque hoy, jueves, que proso estos versos, los hmeros me he puesto a la mala y, jams como hoy, me he vuelto, con todo mi camino, a verme solo.

Cesar Vallejo ha muerto, le pegaban todos sin que el les haga nada ; le daban duro con un palo y duro tambien con una soga ; son testigos los das jueves y los huesos hmeros, la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos