Absolute

Translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert

The color of old clothes. July in shadows
and August just cut down, and a hand
made of water that grafted its bad fruit
onto a pine of resin and languor.

Now you’ve dropped anchor, dark clothes—
you dampen with the sumptuous scents
of time, of brevities . . . and I have sung of
festive tendencies turned upside down.

But can’t you do something about death,
Lord, about limits, about all that ends?
Oh, this wound the color of old clothes,
it splits, it smells of scalded honey.

Oh, exalted unity—how one thing stands for all.
Love against space and love against time.
The singular beat of the heart,
it has but a single rhythm: God.

And as the boundaries shrug
in disdain both coarse and insurmountable,
a stream of serpents is scattering
upon the damsel abundance of 1.
A wrinkling, a shadow.

 


 

Absoluta

 

Color de ropa antigua. Un Julio a sombra,
y un Agosto recién segado. Y una
mano de agua que injertó en el pino
resinoso de un tedio malas frutas.

Ahora que has anclado, oscura ropa,
tornas rociada de un suntuoso olor
a tiempo, a abreviación. . . Y he cantado
el proclive festín que se volcó.

Mas, no puedes, Señor, contra la muerte,
contra el límite, contra lo que acaba?
Ay! la llaga en color de ropa antigua,
cómo se entreabre y huele a miel quemada!

Oh unidad excelsa! Oh lo que es uno
por todos!
Amor contra el espacio y contra el tiempo!
Un latido único de corazón;
un solo ritmo: Dios!

Y al encogerse de hombros los linderos
en un bronco desdén irreductible,
hay un riego de sierpes
en la doncella plenitud del 1.
¡Una arruga, una sombra!

Credit

From Los heraldos negros (Editorial Losada, S. A., 1918) by César Vallejo. Translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert. This poem is in the public domain.

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