Road
Again
the road bare
without
poplars and orchards,
the acid
wind beating
at my
neck like a crazy god
and the
other, like broken arrows,
guarded
my side.
In the
inn waiting
table
covered in white frost,
a stiff
bed, detached
as the
face of the dead
and the
ground detached, my feet
black
from wet grasses.
In each
arm I carried
a basket
of fruit and flowers;
my breast
overflowing
I was
Ceres and Pomona…
I carried
the season
in my
armful of fruits,
foliage,
apples, grapes on the vine
erased
my paths.
I didn’t
stumble, I didn’t see the cloud,
I didn't
smell the scent of the Eumenide,
nor hear its
course at my back:
upon my neck
I didn't hear its panting.
I was
happy and distracted,
without
conjuring,
as a child,
as a child
is expected
to be until death.
God’s
ember sealing my mouth,
the meteor
burning my eyelids,
I received
baptism
and those
who killed me did not.
The dark
wind follows at my back,
cutting
my cry, killing me without death.
(Translation
of “Ruta,” Gabriela Mistral, Lagar II, 1991)
Ballad of My Name
My own
name that I’ve lost,
where
does it live, where does it thrive?
Name of
childhood, drop of milk,
myrtle’s
delicate branch.
If without
me, or if carrying away my youth,
it went
along blissfully
and with
it I no longer walk
through
fields, through meadows.
My cry
it doesn’t know;
the salt
of my skin didn’t scald it;
it hasn’t
seen me white-haired,
nor my
mouth’s anguish,
and when
it meets me, it doesn’t speak.
But they
tell me it walks
along
the precipice of my mountain
late in
the afternoon silently
without
my body and my soul roaming.
(Translation
of “Balada de Mi Nombre,” Gabriela Mistral, Lagar II, 1991)
Ballad
He passed
by with another
and I
saw him pass.
The wind
still gentle,
the path
peaceful.
And these
miserable eyes
saw him
pass!
He goes
loving another
through
the world in bloom.
The hawthorne has opened;
a song
drifts by.
And he
goes loving another
through
the world in bloom!
He kissed
the other
at the
edge of the sea;
the orange-blossom
moon
slipped
over the waves.
And my
blood not spread
on the
breadth of the sea!
He’ll
go with another
through
eternity.
There
will be soft skies.
(God keeps
his silence.)
And he
will go with another
throughout
eternity!
(Translation
of “Balada,” by Gabriela Mistral, Desolación, 1922)
The Other One
One in
me I killed:
I didn’t
love her.
She was
the flaming flower
of the
mountain cactus;
she was
aridity and fire;
never
quenched.
Rock beneath
her
and sky
behind,
never
stooping
to look
for
the morning’s
dew.
Where
she lay to rest
the grass
withered
from her
breath
and her
face’s ember.
So as
not to fall
freely,
an opened dike,
her words
hardened
in quick
resin.
To bend,
the mountain
plant
didn’t know how,
and next
to her
I used
to bend….
(Translation
of “La Otra,” by Gabriela Mistral, Lagar, 1954)
Translation © Lea Graham, 2006
