Cesar Vallejo Center

CESAR VALLEJO (Peru: 1892- Paris- 1938)

Translations by Michael Smith and Valentino Gianuzzi

CONSIDERING COLDLY, IMPARTIALLY . . .

Considering coldly, impartially
that man is sad, coughs, and nevertheless
is pleased in his red chest;
that the only thing he does is to be made
of days;
that he is a lugubrious mammal and combs his hair . . .

Considering
that man derives softly from work
echoes as boss and sounds as subordinate;
that the diagram of time
is a constant diorama on his medals,
that his half-open eyes have studied,
since distant times,
his starving formula of mass . . .

Understanding effortlessly
that man stays at times to wonder,
as if wanting to cry,
and given to lying out as an object
becomes a good carpenter, sweats, kills,
and then sings, has lunch, buttons up . . .

Considering as well
that man is really an animal and
despite this, when turning he hits my head with his sadness . . .

Examining, in short,
his matched pieces, his toilet,
his despair at the end of an atrocious day, erasing him . . .

Comprehending
that he knows I love him,
hate him with affection, and am, in short, indifferent to him . . .

Considering his general documents
and looking through glasses at his certificate
that proves he was born really tiny . . .

I gesture toward him,
he approaches
and I embrace him, moved
So what! Moved . . . Moved . . .