WEBVTT

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[BLANK PORTION OF RECORDING]

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Let me read you
one poem by a poet

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I consider, myself probably,
the greatest poet of the century

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in any language that I know.

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César Vallejo, an Indian
from Peru, dead many years.

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Badly translated
for the most part,

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there's one wonderful
book, Sixties Press,

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20 Poems of César Vallejo.

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And this is one of
them translated by Jim

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Wright and John Knoepfle.

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A little elegy to his brother.

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"To my brother Miguel."

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"Brother, today I sit on the
brick bench outside the house,

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where you make a
bottomless emptiness.

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I remember we used to play
at this hour of the day,

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and mama would calm us:
'There now, boys...'

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Now I go hide as before, from
all those evening prayers,

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and I hope that you
will not find me.

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In the parlor, the entrance
hall, the corridors.

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Later, you hide, and
I do not find you.

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I remember we made each other
cry, brother, in that game.

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Miguel, you hit
yourself one night

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in August, nearly at
daybreak, but instead

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of laughing when you
hid, you were sad.

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And your other heart of
those dead afternoons

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is tired of looking
and not finding you.

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And now shadows
fall on the soul.

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Listen, brother, don't
be too late coming out.

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All right?

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Mama might worry."

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