Christmas Eve

    The orchestra silent, veiled
female shadows stroll under the branches,
through whose frozen fall-of-leaf 
lunar chimeras filter, pale skylights.

    There are lips that lament forgotten arias,
great lilies feign the ivory dresses,
chats and smiles in crazy flocks
perfume with silk the crude copses.

    I hope the light of your return will smile,
and in the epiphany of your slender form,
the feast will sing in greater gold.

    My verses will then bleat on in your grasslands,
crooning in all their mystic bronzes
the birth of the jesus-child of your love.
 
 
 

Translated by Michael Smith and Valentino Gianuzzi
 
 

César Vallejo

>>>As If by George Szirtes

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