C E S A R V A L L I J O

Black Stone Lying On A White Stone
by César Vallejo
Translated by Robert Bly


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. . .
.........................................................................................................................................................................

Great and Grand and Mother and Me

by: Ashlyn Ervin

After: Black Stone Lying On A White Stone

---

I will die in my mother's womb,

when she's birthed me back into myself

and I've all but become her.

...

I will die holding on to Mony's eyes

wrapping my lashes around hers

staring until the space is an ocean

between us and we're overwhelmed

with distance.

...

I'll die with Granny's shoes on my feet

kicking at the bounds of who

I thought I could not be, stepping over them.

...

I won't die with anyone watching,

I'll die in the blink of their eyes and

when they open them, they will not know

I am gone--

...

they will accept the words I have left

as replacements for my existance,

and none of us will die first

...

because when I die, I'll have everyone

of them draped around me--

covering all the gaps

of the women

I've tried so desprately

to become.