After César Vallejo's "Piedra Negra Sobre Una Piedra Blanca"

I will die watering my plants,
& when I do, leave me
in the dirt. I am in the dirt
watering my plants which would die

if I weren’t here, & that is why
I call them mine. It will be a sunny day
because today, a sunny day, as I water
these plants, I’m anxious for no reason.

He became the dirt on that day
next to plants with no flowers,
that sunny day, that day without rain—

some say that the earth
was hungry, that the night was in
a hurry to arrive, that trees remember.