Gabriela Mistral -La otra-

La otra

Una en mí maté:
yo no la amaba.

Era la flor llameando
del cactus de montaña;
era aridez y fuego;
nunca se refrescaba.

Piedra y cielo tenía
a pies y a espadas
y no bajaba nunca
a buscar «ojos de agua».

Donde hacía su siesta,
las hierbas se enroscaban
de aliento de su boca
y brasa de su cara.

En rápidas resinas
se endurecía su habla,
por no caer en linda
presa soltada.

Doblarse no sabía
la planta de montaña,
y al costado de ella,
yo me doblaba...

La dejé que muriese,
robándole mi entraña.
Se acabó como el águila
que no es alimentada.

Sosegó el aletazo,
se dobló, lacia,
y me cayó a la mano
su pavesa acabada...

Por ella todavía
me gimen sus hermanas,
y las gredas de fuego
al pasar me desgarran.

Cruzando yo les digo:
?Buscad por las quebradas
y haced con las arcillas
otra águila abrasada.

Si no podéis, entonces,
¡ay!, olvidadla.
Yo la maté. ¡Vosotras
también matadla!


The other woman

I killed a woman in me.
I didn't love her.

She was the flower flaming
from the mountain cactus,
she was dryness and fire;
nothing could cool her.

Stone and sky she had
underfoot and around her;
never did she kneel
to seek the gaze of water.

Where she lay down
to rest she withered the grass
with the heat of her breath,
the ember of her face.

Her speech hardened
quick as pitch,
so no soft charm
could be released.

She couldn't bow,
the mountain plant,
while I beside her
bowed and bent.

I left her to die,
robbing her of my heart.
She ended like
an eagle starved.

Her wings stopped beating,
she bowed down, spent,
and her quenched spark
dropped in my hand.

Her sisters still
mourn her, accuse me,
and the burning quicklime
claws me as I pass.

Going by I tell them:
"Look in the creekbeds,
from their clays
make another fire-eagle.

If you can't, well then,
forget her!
I killed her. You,
too, you kill her!"

Translated by Ursula Le Guin