2. i
Selected Poems of
GABRIELA MISTRAL
Translated by
URSULA K. LE GUIN
3. ii
Selected Poems of
GABRIELA MISTRAL
Translated by
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Vakils, Feffer & Simons Pvt. Ltd.
Industry Manor, Appasaheb Marathe Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai 400 025, India.
5. Foreword
I am honoured to present you, especially our little children, with a select collection
of wonderful poems by Gabriela Mistral. She was an extremely popular teacher
in the Republic of Chile in South America and was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1945.
It has been a valuable experience collaborating with the Ambassador of Chile,
H.E. Mr. Cristian Barros Melet and the Embassy of Chile to bring about this
unique production. I would like to compliment the Gabriela Mistral Foundation
for upholding the legacy of this great individual.
I am very proud that students of our Jindal Vidya Mandir Schools in Vasind,
Maharashtra and Vijayanagar, Karnataka have illustrated the selected poems.
Their wonderful interpretation of these poems in visual form has been a
fascinating journey, one I am sure our students will cherish. Vakils have given
this collection of poems the perfect creative treatment that further complements
their emotive content.
I hope you will enjoy this beautiful and wonderful book.
With my best wishes,
Sangita Jindal
vi vii
6. viii
Rocking................................................ 3
Dew ...................................................... 4
Give me your Hand................................ 7
Fear....................................................... 9
Little Bud............................................ 10
Discovery.............................................13
The Girl with the Crippled Hand...........14
Larks....................................................17
Fire..................................................... 18
The Ones Not Dancing.........................21
Little Star.............................................22
Little Feet.............................................24
The Bit of Straw..................................27
Animals...............................................29
The Parrot............................................31
The Peacock........................................32
Pine Woods..........................................35
The Rat............................................... 36
Weaving the Round............................ 38
1
7. Rocking
Holy ocean rocks its millions
of waves in the sun.
Listening to the loving seas
I rock my little one.
Wandering in the night the wind
rocks the wheat.
Listening to the loving winds
I rock my sweet.
The Father rocks his thousand worlds
silent, mild.
Feeling His hand in the darkness
I rock my child.
2 3
8. Dew
This was a rose
dew-laden.
This was my breast
with my baby.
She closes her petals
to hold it safe,
turns from the wind,
lest it slip away.
For it came down to her
from immense heaven,
and so she must
suspend her breath.
Her good fortune makes her
hold still, hold still:
rose of all roses
most fulfilled.
This was a rose
dew-laden.
This was my breast
with my baby.
4 5
9. 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,
singing the tune together 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.
6 7
10. Fear
I don’t want my daughter
to get turned into swallow.
She’d dive straight up to heaven
and never come down to our mattress,
She’d make a nest up in the eaves
and I couldn’t comb her hair.
I don’t want my daughter
turned into a swallow.
I don’t want my daughter
to get made into a princess.
If she wears golden slippers
how can she play in the fields?
And when the night comes
she wouldn’t lie beside me.
I don’t want my daughter
turned into a princess.
And most of all I don’t want them
to go and make her queen!
They’d set her on a throne
so high I couldn’t reach it,
and when the night came
I couldn’t rock her.
I don’t want my daughter
to become a queen!
8 9
11. Little Bud
I had a little flower bud
here, next to my heart.
It was as white and tiny
as a grain of rice.
From the light I hid it,
when the sun was hot.
I had a little flower bud
close against my heart.
It kept growing and growing,
longer than my shadow.
It was tall as a tree,
and its brow like the sun.
It kept growing and growing
and filled my lap,
and went off down the roads
like a singing stream…
I’ve lost it, so I’m singing
to rock my sorrow:
‘I had a little flower bud
close against my heart.’
10 11
12. Discovery
I came on this little boy
when I was in the fields;
I found him sleeping
in the standing wheat.
Or maybe I was coming
through the vineyard,
looking for the little clusters,
and brushed against his cheek.
And that’s why I’m afraid
he’ll disappear like
frost from the vine leaves
if I stay asleep.
12 13
13. The Girl with the Crippled Hand
Maybe a clam snapped up my little finger
and maybe the clam fell in the sand
and the sea swallowed up the sand.
And then a whaler fished it from the sea
and the whaler sailed to Gibraltar,
and fishermen are singing on Gibraltar,
“A wonder of the earth we’ve found in the sea,
the wondrous little finger of a girl.
If she’s missing it let her come seek it!”
People might give me a ship to go and get it,
and give me a captain for the ship,
and give me soldiers for the captain,
and I’ll need a city for the soldiers,
Marseilles, with towers and squares and ships,
the finest city in the whole wide world,
but not so fine for a little girl
whose little finger was stolen by the sea.
And the whalers are singing shanties,
and they’re waiting, waiting on Gibraltar.....
14 15
14. Larks
They were in the scattered wheat.
As we came near, the whole flock
flew, and the poplars stood
as if struck by a hawk.
Sparks in stubble when they rise,
silver thrown up in air.
They’re past before they pass,
too quick for praise.
Eyes are too slow to see
the whole flock’s taken wing,
and we shout out, “Larks!”
at what’s up – lost – singing.
In the air they wounded
they’ve left us with a longing,
a tremor, a wonder
half of the body, half of the soul.
Larks, child – see,
larks rise from the wheat!
16 17
15. Fire
Since night’s already on us,
with its line that dims and blurs,
let’s go home by the road
of the Angel and the herds.
Now they light in houses
the Fire in the kindling-wood,
Fire that could kill you
but only does you good.
It leaps in birds of red and blue,
it goes, yet stays and keeps you warm,
where you go it goes with you.
It’s in my heart, but does no harm,
It’s in the song I sing to you.
Love it wherever you find it!
In the dark, in the cold, in death,
follow worshipping behind it,
blest by the Archangel’s breath.
18 19
16. The Ones Not Dancing
The crippled girl says:
how can I be a dancer?
Do your dancing in your heart,
we answer.
The stream says:
I can’t sing if I’am dry.
Do your singing in your heart,
we reply.
The poor dead thistle says:
My dance is at an end.
We say: Let your heart fly
on the wind.
God in Heaven says:
How can I get down?
We say: Descend in light
to dance us in our round.
All the valley’s dancing
where the sunlight flashes.
Whoever doesn’t join us,
his heart is dust and ashes.
20 21
17. Little Star
Little star, fallen
on my heart to shine:
ah, such a miracle
can’t be mine.
I fell asleep one night
and woke with her
fallen shining
in my braided hair.
I called my sisters,
and they hurried to me:
A light growing, trembling,
in the sheets, do you see?
And I called to the unbelievers,
from my dooryard,
Look, she’s not a baby,
feel her, she’s a star!
All my friends, excited,
crowded into my house,
some carry her for me,
and some of them kiss.
Days and days now
there’s been festival
around the cradle
where burns my star.
This year no frost
falls on the gardens,
the cattle don’t die,
the vines are laden.
The women all bless me
and my love replies:
Ah, let her sleep,
my little star-child!
Light pours from her body,
light pours from her eyes,
and I watch her and weep,
for she’s mine, she’s mine!
22 23
18. Little Feet
Children’s little feet,
blue with cold, how can you be
seen and not protected,
dear Lord!
Little feet bruised
by every stone,
abused by the snow,
the mud:
Blind eyes don’t see
that where you pass
you leave a living flower
of light.
That where you set
your bleeding sole
the sweet herb grows
more sweet.
Since you walk
the straight streets,
be heroic, as you are
complete.
Children’s little feet,
jewels of suffering,
how can those who pass you
not see!
24 25
19. The Bit of Straw
This one that was a waxen doll,
but she wasn’t a waxen doll at all,
but a bit of chaff where they thresh the grain.
But she wasn’t really a bit of chaff,
but the stiff flower that follows the sun.
She wasn’t the flower, though, she was
a gleam of sun on the windowpane.
She wasn’t gleam of sun at all
but a bit of straw that got into my eyes.
Come here and look how I lost it all,
in this one big tear, my true festival!
26 27
20. Animals
Small beasts prowl and bleat,
sniffing at your hands and feet.
Another realm, another earth
gave the animals their birth.
Like children seeking home they seem,
dark and passing in a dream.
In their cloudcurled manes and wools,
in their polished shining shells,
coppery or pied or flecked,
they make the world a picturebook.
Child of the Ark, may you hear their call
And dance in the Round of the Animals!
28 29
21. The Parrot
The green and yellow parrot,
the green and saffron parrot
says “Ugly” to me in its nasal voice
out of its Satanic beak.
I’m not ugly, for if I’m ugly,
so is my mother, who’s like the sun,
and the light she gazes at is ugly,
the wind that bears her voice,
the water that bears her body, ugly,
and the world, and the One who made it.
The green and yellow parrot,
the green and changing-color parrot
calls me “Ugly” because it’s hungry,
and I bring it bread and wine myself,
for I’m sick of looking at it,
always perching, always changing color…
30 31
22. The Peacock
What if the wind blew and bore away the clouds,
and there was a peacock flying in the clouds,
what if the peacock came to my hand
and my hand is going to wither,
and this morning I gave my hand
to the king who came to be married:
O for the sky, O for the wind and the cloud,
all gone with the king’s peacock!
32 33
23. Pine Woods
As we’re going through the woods
trees pass before you now,
and I stop and show you to them,
but they’re too stiff to bow.
Night puts everything to bed
but the pines that stand upright,
old, deep-scarred, slowly welling
holy resins in the night.
If they could they’d pick you up
and carry you farther and farther,
passing you from arm to arm,
from father to father…
34 35
24. The Rat
A rat ran after a deer,
deer ran after a jaguar,
jaguars chased buffalo,
and the buffalo chased the sea.
Catch the ones who chase and flee!
Catch the rat, catch the deer,
catch the buffalo and the sea!
Look, look at the rat in front,
in its paws is a woollen thread,
with that thread I sew my gown,
in that gown I will be wed.
Climb up and run, breathless run,
ceaseless chase across the plain
after the carriage, the flying veil,
after the bride and bridal the train!
36 37
25. Weaving the Round
Where shall we go to weave the round?
Shall we go down to the ocean beach?
The sea’ll dance in a thousand waves
to make us an orange-blossom wreath.
Shall we go where the hills come down?
The mountains are going to answer,
as if every stone in the world
started singing and dancing.
Even better, let’s go to the woods:
voice will wreathe together with voice,
songs of children, songs of birds
meeting and kissing on the breeze!
Making the round, the endless round,
we’ll go to the woods to twine the wreath,
and weave it wherever the hills come down
and along the beaches of all the seas.
38 39
26. 40
Illustrations by students of
Jindal Vidya Mandir Schools
A.Niranjan (Std 7 B)
Adabala Srilatha (Std 9 C)
Akshata.S.S (Std 10 A)
Ashmita Chowdhary (Std 9 A)
Bhavana.T.G (Std 8 A)
Chandana.S.Dhongade (Std 10 B)
Debarsho Sannyasi (Std 7 B)
Dimple Atry (Std 10 C)
Gautam Gupta (Std 9 B)
Kiran Mai (Std 8 C)
Krishna Mandal (Std 8 B)
Meenakshi Patil (Std 10 A)
Neha Dabholkar (Std 10 A)
Nihal (Std 7 C)
Niti Shri Raul (Std 8 A)
P.Kushali (Std 7 C)
Pallavi.M.S (Std 7 D)
Priti Bhosle (Std 8 A)
Rahul Yadav (Std 8 B)
Santosh Vishwakarma (Std 8 B)
Sejal Patil (Std 10 B)
Shagun Bera (Std 7 A)
Shashikant Pradhan (Std 9 C)
Shivangi Jadon (Std 9 B)
Shyam Patil (Std 9 A)
Sona Singh (Std 9 C)
Sridevi.R.C (Std 7 D)
Sunil Jaiswar (Std 9 C)
Sushil.K.Gupta (Std 10 A)
U.S.Ramya (Std 8 A)
Vedatroyee Ghosh (Std 9 A)
Vedatroyee Ghosh (Std 9 A)
27. JSW Foundation collaboration with
Embassy of Chile
Vakils Feffer & Simons
Pvt. Ltd.
Embassy of Chile
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