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Events
CESAR VALLEJO (Peru: 1892- Paris- 1938)
Translations by Michael Smith and Valentino Gianuzzi
THE WRETCHED SUPPER
How long shall we be waiting for what
is not due to us . . . And on what corner shall we extend
our poor knee forever! How long
will the cross that cheers us on not halt its oaring.
How long will Doubt offer us blazons
for having suffered . . .
We have been sitting
enough time at this table, with the bitterness of a child
who at midnight, cries with hunger, awake . . .
And when shall we see ourselves with the rest, at the edge
of an eternal morning, all of us breakfasted.
How long in this vale of tears, to which
I never asked to be brought.
On my elbows
all bathed in weeping, I repeat head-bowed,
vanquished: How long will the supper last.
There is someone who has overdrunk, and mocks us,
drawing close and far from us, like a black spoonful
of bitter human essence, the grave . . .
And that dark one
hardly knows how long the supper will last!