Otilia, Vive Ac Vale (Vallejo Ascending)

            [dedicated to Roger Santiváñez]

                      Yo no sufro este dolor como César Vallejo.

                      Yo no me duelo ahora como artista, como hombre.

                      Ni como simple ser vivo siquiera....

                                                                             ( César Vallejo)

Footprints on wet sponge meadows,

empty shoes left and right amid a host

of zeros in high alpine heat,

a pile of laundered lavender in the street,

a hand-carved hardwood cane,

everywhere the pain.

No breakfast & then a cairn,

a sign & inscription:

ESTACIÓN VI

CÉSAR VALLEJO DISAPPEARED HERE

WASHED AWAY WASHING AWAY

in what two-faced moon between January,

between what lunes of what Hippocrates

lay this ring?

Vive ac vale, Otilia, lost in the smell of our green branches,

lost at the crossroads of three ways....

After that there is no more to be said,

except to shrug the shoulders and keep climbing.

E. A. Costa   28 December, 2011 (Michigan City, Indiana)—1 January 2015 (Granada, Nicaragua)