Gabriela Mistral Poems ( the Sad Poet and Her Pen)
The sadness Gabriela Mistral experienced as a result of early losses influenced her art for many years, inspiring her to produce some of her finest pieces, such as Sonetos de la Muerte. Her latter poetry frequently dealt with the subject of death. Here are some famous Gabriela Mistral poems.
Gabriela Mistral, also known as Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist who lived from April 7, 1889, to January 10, 1957.
You may read these Gabriela Mistral poems (poemas de Gabriela Mistral) on life, love, and death here in their English translations.
At fifteen, Mistral stopped officially attending school to take care of her ill mother, but she carried on writing poetry. Two years later, her heart ached after learning of the tragic passing of her boyfriend Romeo Ureta and a beloved nephew.
The first writer from Latin America to win the Nobel Prize in Literature was Gabriela Mistral. See the essay, “Beyond the Mythic Mistral,” for additional information on the main topics in her writing. About her own urge to write, she stated:
“I write poetry because I can’t disobey the impulse; it would be like blocking a spring that surges up in my throat. For a long time I’ve been the servant of the song that comes, that appears and can’t be buried away.
How to seal myself up now? … It no longer matters to me who receives what I submit. What I carry out is, in that respect, greater and deeper than I, I am merely the channel.”
Song of Death
Old Woman Census-taker,
Death the Trickster,
when you’re going along,
don’t you meet my baby.Sniffing at newborns,
smelling for the milk,
find salt, find cornmeal,
don’t find my milk.
Anti-Mother of the world,
People-Collector —
on the beaches and byways,
don’t meet that child.The name he was baptized,
that flower he grows with,
forget it, Rememberer.
Lose it, Death.Let wind and salt and sand
drive you crazy, mix you up
so you can’t tell
East from West,or mother from child,
like fish in the sea.
And on the day, at the hour,
find only me.
READ ALSO:
Give Me Your Hand
Give me your hand and give me your love,
give me your hand and dance with me.
A single flower, and nothing more,
a single flower is all we’ll be.Keeping time in the dance together,
you’ll be singing the song with me.
Grass in the wind, and nothing more,
grass in the wind is all we’ll be.I’m called Hope and you’re called Rose:
but losing our names we’ll both go free,
a dance on the hills, and nothing more,
a dance on the hills is all we’ll be.
The Song You Loved
Life of my life, what you loved I sing.
If you’re near, if you’re listening,
think of me now in the evening:
shadow in shadows, hear me sing.Life of my life, I can’t be still.
What is a story we never tell?
How can you find me unless I call?Life of my life, I haven’t changed,
not turned aside and not estranged.
Come to me as the shadows grow long,
come, life of my life, if you know the song
you used to know, if you know my name.
I and the song are still the same.Beyond time or place I keep the faith.
Follow a path or follow no path,
never fearing the night, the wind,
call to me, come to me, now at the end,
walk with me, life of my life, my friend.
READ ALSO:
In Praise of Salt
The salt, in great mounds on the beach of Eve in the year 3,000,
seems squared off in front and squared off in the back,
holding no warm dove nor living rose in its hand,
and the salt of the rock salt that gleams,
even more than the seal on its peak,
capable of turning everything into a jewel.The salt that bleaches the seagull’s belly
and crackles in the penguin’s breast,
and that in mother-of-pearl plays
With colors that are not its own.The salt is absolute and pure as death.
The salt nailed through the hearts of good people,
even the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, keeps them from dissolving in piety.
Children’s Hair
Soft hair, hair that is all the softness of the world:
without you lying in my lap, what silk would I enjoy?
sweet the passing day because of that silk, sweet the sustenance,
sweet the ancient sadness, at least for the few hours it slips between my hands.Touch it to my cheek;
wind it in my lap like flowers;
let me braid it, to soften my pain,
to magnify the light with it, now that it is dying.When I am with God someday, I do not want an angel’s wing
to cool my heart’s bruises;
I want, stretches against the sky, the hair of the children I loved,
to let it blow in the wind against my face eternally!
Poems of the Mothers
I was kissed, and I am othered: another,
because of the pulse that echoes the pulse in my veins;
another, because of the breath I feel within my breath.My belly, now, is as noble as my heart …
And now I feel in my own breathing an exhalation of flowers:
all because of the one who rests inside me gently,
as the dew on the grass!
READ ALSO:
- Christmas Love Poems
- Sandra Cisneros Poems
- Emo Poems to Help You
- The Quality of Mercy is Not Strained
Art
I. Beauty
A song is the wound of love that things open in us.
Coarse man, the only thing that arouses you is the woman’s womb,
a mass of female flesh. But our disquiet is continuous;
we feel the thrust of all the beauty of the world,
because the starry night was for us a love as sharp as carnal love.A song is a response we offer to the beauty of the world.
And we offer that response with an uncontainable tremor,
just as you tremble before a naked breast.And because we return, in blood, this caress of Beaut,
and because we respond to Beauty’s infinite calling through the paths,
we walk more timorously, more reviled than you:
we, the pure.
The Sunflower
“I know for certain it is he, the one up above. But the little plants don’t see him,
and they believe it is I who warms them
and licks them all afternoon.”I – whose stem is hard, as you can see– I never answer them,
not even with a nod of the head.It’s no deception on my part, but I let them deceive themselves,
because they will never reach him, who would burn them in any case.
As for me, on the other hand, they hardly even reach my feet.It’s a form of great servitude to be the sun.
This turning towards the East and towards the sunset,
constantly attending to his position,
tires my neck, which is not so limber.And they, the little grasses, they continue to sing down there:
“The sun has four hundred golden leaves,
a great dark disc at the center, and a sovereign stem.”I hear them, but I offer them no confirming sign with my head.
I keep quiet, but as for me. I know for certain it is he, the one up above.
Bread
Vice of habituation. Wonder of childhood,
magical feeling of raw materials and elements:
flour, salt, oil, water, fire.
Moments of pure vision, pure hearing, pure touch.Consciousness of life at one moment.
All the memories revolve around bread.It carries an intense sense of life, and also,
through I don’t know what internal association, an equally strong sense of death.
The thought of life turns banal from the moment it isn’t blended with the thought of death.
The pure essentials are superficial giants or little pagans.
The pagan paid attention to both.
Asides these sad/grave poems, 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate Skyler Isabella Gomez holds a degree in public relations and a minor in black studies. Her interests include exploring renowned Latina literature to better understand her Latino heritage.
What do you think about the poet and her pen? Share with others to get their opinions on the poems contained herein. What do ou think? Let us know in the comment section below.