Translation:The Black Heralds (1918)/Calendar of Saints

by César Vallejo

 
(Paragraphs)

Old Osiris! I arrived at life’s
opposing wall.

And it seems to me that I’ve always
had this wall within reach.

I am the shade, the reverse: everything passes
beneath my steps of an eternal column.

I’ve brought nothing by the braids; everything
came easily to me, like an inheritance.

Sardanapalo. Thus, my mouth was
an electric button of sleep’s machinery.

Thus have I arrived at the opposing wall
and have always had this wall within reach.

Old Osiris! I forgive you! That nothing
managed to need me, nothing, nothing.