Black Stone On Top Of A White Stone

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,

On a day I already remember.

I shall die in Paris— it does not bother me—

Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.

It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday

As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders

To the evil. Never like today have I turned,

And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.

César Vallejo is dead. They struck him,

All of them, though he did nothing to them,

They hit him hard with a stick and hard also

With the end of a rope. Witnesses are: the Thursdays,

The shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads…

translated by Thomas Merton