Gabriela Mistral
translated from the Spanish by Mariela Griffor
and reprinted by permission of the Gabriela Mistral Foundation
Los Sonetos de la Muerte/The Sonnets of Death
The Sonnets of Death
From the frozen niche in which men put you,
I will bring you down to the humble and sunny earth.
That I have to sleep in it men did not know,
and that we have to dream on the same pillow.
I will lie you down on a sunny land with a
sweetness of a mother for a sleeping child
and the land must become softness of a crib
to receive your body of child in pain.
Then I will sprinkle soil and dust of roses,
and the light bluish dust of moon,
the light remains will be taken prisoners.
I will turn away singing my beautiful revenges,
because at that innermost profundity the hand of any woman
will come down to dispute a handful of your bones!
II
This long fatigue will become greater one day,
and the soul will tell the body that no longer want
dragging its mass by the rosy path,
where the men, walk content to live ...
You will feel besides you they dig briskly,
another woman comes to the still calmed city.
I will wait until they cover me in full ...
And then we will talk for ages!
Only then will you know why your unripe
flesh and bones still fresh,
had to go down, without fatigue, to sleep.
Will light in the area of the sinos, obscure;
you will know that in our partnership was a sign of stars
and broken the huge pact, you had to die ...
III
Bad hands took over your life from the day
where, in a sign of stars, left its squad
of snowy lilies. Blossomed into joy.
Went tragically wrong hands on it ...
And I say to the Lord: "Through mortal pathways
he had been taken. Loved shadow that they cannot lead!
Tear him out, Lord, from those fatal hands
or stab him in the long sleep you are known to give!
I cannot cry to him, I cannot follow him!
His boat pushes a black wind of storm.
Return him to my arms or rip him to blossom.
The barca rosa of his life stopped...
I do not know of love, that I had no pity?
You are going to judge me, you understand, Lord!
__________
Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American (and, so far, the only Latin American woman) to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences.
Mariela Griffor’s book of poetry, The Psychiatrist, is forthcoming from Eyewear Publishing in the fall of 2013. She is the author of Exiliana and House (Mayapple Press, 2007). Also as prose writer and translator, she has published nonfiction in Metro Times, Poetry International, and several anthologies; her translations appear in Washington Square Review, Éditions d’art Le Sabord, Aldus, Ghost Town Magazine and most recently in Absinthe. Her translation of Canto General by Pablo Neruda is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in 2013. She is publisher of Marick Press and Consul for Chile in Michigan where she lives with her family.
translated from the Spanish by Mariela Griffor
and reprinted by permission of the Gabriela Mistral Foundation
Los Sonetos de la Muerte/The Sonnets of Death
The Sonnets of Death
From the frozen niche in which men put you,
I will bring you down to the humble and sunny earth.
That I have to sleep in it men did not know,
and that we have to dream on the same pillow.
I will lie you down on a sunny land with a
sweetness of a mother for a sleeping child
and the land must become softness of a crib
to receive your body of child in pain.
Then I will sprinkle soil and dust of roses,
and the light bluish dust of moon,
the light remains will be taken prisoners.
I will turn away singing my beautiful revenges,
because at that innermost profundity the hand of any woman
will come down to dispute a handful of your bones!
II
This long fatigue will become greater one day,
and the soul will tell the body that no longer want
dragging its mass by the rosy path,
where the men, walk content to live ...
You will feel besides you they dig briskly,
another woman comes to the still calmed city.
I will wait until they cover me in full ...
And then we will talk for ages!
Only then will you know why your unripe
flesh and bones still fresh,
had to go down, without fatigue, to sleep.
Will light in the area of the sinos, obscure;
you will know that in our partnership was a sign of stars
and broken the huge pact, you had to die ...
III
Bad hands took over your life from the day
where, in a sign of stars, left its squad
of snowy lilies. Blossomed into joy.
Went tragically wrong hands on it ...
And I say to the Lord: "Through mortal pathways
he had been taken. Loved shadow that they cannot lead!
Tear him out, Lord, from those fatal hands
or stab him in the long sleep you are known to give!
I cannot cry to him, I cannot follow him!
His boat pushes a black wind of storm.
Return him to my arms or rip him to blossom.
The barca rosa of his life stopped...
I do not know of love, that I had no pity?
You are going to judge me, you understand, Lord!
__________
Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) was the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American (and, so far, the only Latin American woman) to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences.
Mariela Griffor’s book of poetry, The Psychiatrist, is forthcoming from Eyewear Publishing in the fall of 2013. She is the author of Exiliana and House (Mayapple Press, 2007). Also as prose writer and translator, she has published nonfiction in Metro Times, Poetry International, and several anthologies; her translations appear in Washington Square Review, Éditions d’art Le Sabord, Aldus, Ghost Town Magazine and most recently in Absinthe. Her translation of Canto General by Pablo Neruda is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in 2013. She is publisher of Marick Press and Consul for Chile in Michigan where she lives with her family.