Rodin's Thinker
With chin fallen upon the rough hand,
the Thinker remembers that he is flesh of bone,
mortal flesh, naked in the face of destiny,
flesh that hates death and that has trembled at beauty.
And trembled at love, all his ardent springtime,
and now, in autumn, drowns in truth and sadness.
"We partake of death," passes over his face,
in completely keen bronze, when night falls.
And in anguish, his muscles cleave, suffering.
The furrows of his flesh fill with terror.
He cleaves, like the leaf of autumn, to the strong Master
who summons himself in the bronze figures.... And there is no tree twisted
by the sun on the plain, nor lion with wounded side,
troubled like this man who meditates on death.
--Gabriela Mistral, trans. S.S.
The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral received the Nobel Peize for literature in 1945. Though sometimes dismissed nowadays as a dowdy, overly religious schoolmarm, she is actually stunningly good, to my mind preferable to that other internationally-recognized Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda.
