Sonnets on Death



                                   I


I will lower you to the humble and lonely earth
from the frozen niche in which men have put you.
Men haven’t known that I must die in it,
and that we must sleep on the same pillow.

I will awaken you in the lonely earth
with a mother’s sweetness for her sleeping son,
and the earth must soften the child’s cradle
upon receiving yours, the body of a wounded child.

Later I will sprinkle earth and the dust of roses,
and in the blueness and light dusting of the moon,
the remnant lights will remain prisoners.

I will move away singing my beautiful revenge
because no one’s hand will descend in this
secret depth to argue with me your handful of bones!


                               II



This deep tiredness will grow older one day,
and the soul will tell the body it doesn’t wish to follow
anymore, dragging its weight through reddened roads
from where men go, content to live . . .

You will feel that at your side they dig with spirit,
that another sleeper arrives in the quiet city.
I will wait until they have covered me completely . . .
and later we can talk for an eternity!

Only then will you know why your flesh
no longer matures in deep graves,
why you had to descend, without fatigue, to sleep.

There will be light in the zone of fate, darkened;
you will know that in our alliance was a stellar sign
and, the enormous pact broken, you had to die . . .


                                     III




Wicked hands took your life since that day
when, at a signal from the stars, your nursery
was left, snowed upon by lilies.  In joy it flourished.
Wicked hands entered tragically.

And I said to the gentleman: -- “They carry him
down mortal roads.  Beloved shadow that doesn’t
know how to guide!  Uproot him, Sir, from those
fatal hands or you bury him in the deep sleep
you know how to give!

I can’t cry to him, I can’t follow him!
A black tempest wind pushes his boat.
Come back to my arms or you will cut his flower.”

The rosy boat of his life came to a stop . . .
I don’t know love, I don’t have piety?
You, who are going to judge me, you understand it, Sir!


Gabriela Mistral