| I Am Going to Speak of
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 have its
cause 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 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 grass 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.
César Vallejo
trans. by Robert Bly
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