Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)

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Written by Nurel Javissyarqi
Translated by Agus B. Harianto

AKU TAK KENAL SEPI
Gabriela Mistral

Malam: Gurun pegunungan
Yang menjengkau ke lautan
Tapi aku yang buai kamu
Peduli sepi bagiku

Angkasa kosong dan lengang
Jika purnama menghilang
Tapi aku yang belai kamu
Peduli sepi bagiku

Dunia menggurun pasir
Dan jasad binasa, hancur
Tapi aku yang dekap kamu
Peduli sepi bagiku.


I DO NOT KNOW SILENCE
By Gabriela Mistral

Night: Desert of mountains
Which stretched to the sea
But I swing you
Cared about silence for me

Space is empty and deserted
If the full moon disappears
But I pet you
Hell with the silence for me

World be a desert
And body perish, crushed
But I hugged you
Cared about the silence for me.

(Took from the “Puisi Dunia” (World Poetry), Volume I, compiled by M. Ali Taslim, Balai Pustaka in 1952, which is in retranslated into English would be more or less like above)

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) was born in vicuna, Chile, at 1945 Gabriella got literature prize winner, for the writing “Desolation” (translated into French by several prominent French poet). Gabriela was so free to sing Gabriella’s passionate feelings in Spanish. Gabriella played an important role in the education system in Mexico and Chile, was active in the cultural committee of the League of Nations (League of Nations), the Chilean consul in Nepal, Madrid, Lisbon. Gabriella got honorary degrees from the University of Florence and Guatemala, as such honorary member of various cultural societies in Chile, the United States, and Spain also Cuba. Gabriella Taught the Spanish literature at University College, Vassar College and University of Puerto Rico as well. Gabriella’s poems of love remembered to the dead, “Sonetos de la muerte” (1914) made Gabriella be famous throughout Latin America. Desolation (despair) was not published until 1922. At 1924, Gabriella published “Ternura” (Romance) which is dominated by childhood that related to the birth. Gabriella played an important role of “Tala” (1938). Gabriella’ complete poetry anthology was published in 1958. (This story was completed from the book “50 Peraih Nobel Kesusastraan”, editor by Eddy Soetrisno, Dr. Morton Grosser, Innovation, Jakarta).
***

If the inauguration of Nobel Prize in literature at the end of 1945, hence it means that it after the United States bombed on the orders of President Harry S. Truman, whom killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima, 80,000 people in Nagasaki at August.

Silent after the war, the curfew was still running in Gabriella’s country, there the voice of Gabriela’s silence, volcano of thought reached into the ocean of tears, the pounding of the waves were still interpreted as puzzle of cliffs.

There was no concern other than lonely and quiet chewed the silence, wounds would not to be healed; only loyalty to the country visited the foundation of kept to strive for self-esteem.

The sky was empty, the stars were upset and the billowing smoke was making clouds, the moon didn’t appear in facing with the borne of the dream. Tomorrow, all would absorb in contemplation of hesitation, no quiet but who cares about it, the wailing of wall knelt on the floor.

The unspeakable cold when felt chills, the pain of crying for the death to the afflicted by the death many times, sojourn of graves, frangipani flowers tucked at the ear.

Split behind the long matted hair of events, its color was dull didn’t seem gold by blindness of misery. Only poetry capable to speak, wiped the head of orphaned children in the birth land after stepped by greedy legs.

The loneliness of the poet pours the words to heal the wounds of history, but nonetheless painful sore if not covered in sweat of working. To grow seeds of possibility, to expand the zone of consciousness of certitude, stand straight to look in the mirror the essence of the Divinity.

From the first of the birth had hope, the nations would no longer have war which destructed the silence and estranged the mind unless a desire to have revenge. So, anyone cares to the silence would deserved to get liberty, stays away from rotten thinking to suppress the fellow mankind.

The silence witnessed ruined corpse approached to the desert that was dried on feeling, blown by piled wind to have drowned; anxiousness and hate, only in the depths of the heart that the poets merely could feel it, the heartbeat pounded by the rocks of death of oppression.