Stone and Road
I’m coming down the hill
–stone and road–
bringing tangled up in my soul, viday,
a sorrow.
You accuse me of not loving you.
Don’t say such a thing…
Perhaps you will never understand, viday,
why I’m leaving…
It’s my destiny,
road and stone…
I am a pilgrim, viday,
of a distant and beautiful dream.
I seek more than joy,
I live suffering…
And when I should stay, viday,
I get going…
At times I am like a stream:
I arrive singing…
And without anybody knowing, viday,
I leave weeping…
--Song by Atahualpa Yupanqui
Translation © Maia Evrona

-Poems and Songs of Atahualpa Yupanqui

The Brooklyn Rail; inTranslation, July 2016