Opposite the Comédie Française is the Café
de la Régence; inside is a secluded
room, with an armchair and a table.
When I enter, the immovable dust has already got to its feet.
Between my lips made of rubber, the ember
of a cigarette smokes, and in the smoke you can see
two intensive smokes, the thorax of the Café,
and in the thorax, a thick rust of sadness.
It’s important that autumn is grafted on to other autumns,
it’s important that autumn blends in with the green shoots,
the cloud with semesters; the frown line with cheekbones.
It’s important to smell like a madman postulating
how hot the snow is, how swift the tortoise,
how simple the how, how sudden the when!
—César Vallejo
(translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa)
César Vallejo (1892–1938) is considered to be one of the finest and most original of Latin American poets. A selection of his poems, The Eternal Dance, has been translated by Margaret Jull Costa and will be out in March from New Directions.
