Years ago my daughter introduced me to this wonderful Peruvian poet. I was delighted to discover that there is an audio version of Vallejo reading the poem aloud. His voice is really beautiful and he reads it slowly a mixture of loving and sad.
"Distant Footsteps" from The Black Heralds (1919)
My father is asleep. His august face
expresses a peaceful heart;
he is now so sweet...
if there is anything bitter in him, it must be me.
There is loneliness in the house; there is prayer;
and no news of the children today.
My father stirs, sounding
the flight into Egypt, the styptic farewell.
He is now so near;
if there is anything distant in him, it must be me.
My mother walks in the orchard,
savoring a savor now without savor.
She is so soft,
so wing, so gone, so love.
There is loneliness in the house with no bustle,
no news, no green, no childhood.
And if there is something broken this afternoon,
something that descends and that creaks,
it is two old white, curved roads.
Down them my heart makes its way on foot.
(translated by Clayton Eshelman)
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....
