“I will die in Paris with a hard dirty rain,
on a day I now remember,
I will die in Paris – and I don’t run –
maybe a Thursday, like today, in autumn.”
César Vallejo, Black Stone on a White Stone
Poem at the End
Watching the news now
i know i will surely die
in a cold warehouse
erected by army engineers
on wasteground
between my place of work
and my own bedroom.
i will die
like all our homeless died,
in long lines
of suffering humanity
as if not enough of us
had died
this way
and already
down the centuries of human ignominy.
i will die as we all die
cursing the day of my birth
and worse,
this world i accidently
landed on
in my flight
between worlds
of infinite possibility.
i will die
an old man in my mind
but young in this vision that
has haunted me,
this vision of a world and a place
sheltered by angels
whose wings willingly embrace
an enormity of suffering
and whose warms hearts
shield
all these foolish children
in times of war.
séamas carraher 2 April – 12 April, 2020
From séamas carraher’s email to the editor;
[…] Anyway: yes, I am isolated here but continue to work (as few shifts as possible). I work
with homeless street drinkers so it is not so safe (so I wrote my epitaph, which I will attach below,*
more on impulse and remembering Vallejo when I saw the pictures online than any particular forbidding).
The work is frustrating though as our people/residents really have little concern for illness due to their
enormous suffering and addictions… It offers a challenge to one’s compassion.[…]
Note César Vallejo’s poem translated by Clayton Eshleman, Grove Press, 1968 edition.
