Translation:The Black Heralds (1918)/Absolute

by César Vallejo

 
Color of old clothes. A dark July,
and a just-reaped August. And a
watery hand that grafted evil fruits
onto the resinous pine from boredom.

 Now that you’ve anchored, dark clothes,
you return drenched in a sumptuous scent
of time, of abbreviation... And I have sung
the desired and overflowing feast.

But can’t you, Lord, against death,
against the limit, against what ends?
Ah, the old-clothing-colored sore,
how it slightly opens and smells of burnt honey!

Oh sublime unity! Oh that which is one
for all!
Love against space and against time!
A single heartbeat,
a single rhythm: God!

And as the boundaries shrink back
in a rough unyielding disdain,
there’s a stream of serpents
in the virgin plenitude of 1.
A wrinkle, a shadow!