Title: Gabriela Mistral and Wislawa Szymborska: War, Peace, and Politics
1Gabriela Mistral and Wislawa SzymborskaWar,
Peace, and Politics
- Dolores Lehr
- La Salle University
- PCEA, April 9, 2005
2Gabriela Mistral
- Born Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga April 7, 1889 in
Vicuna, Chile - Died January 10, 1957
- Long Island, New York
3Gabriela Mistral
- Educator
- Poet
- Diplomat
- Recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1945
4Wislawa Szymborska
- Born July 2, 1923 in Kornik, Poland
- Lives in Krakow, Poland
5Wislawa Szymborska
- Literary Editor
- Poet
- Recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1996
6Mistrals The Fall of Europe
- Come, brother, come tonight
- to pray with our sister who has
- no child or mother or people here.
- Its bitter to pray and hear the echo
- sent back by wall and empty air.. .
- She burns, the Old Mother who sheltered us
- In her olive orchard and her vineyard.
- We are the children calling to their Mother
- Not knowing in this hour if she is the same
- and will answer to the name we call her,
7Mistrals Fall of Europe
- or if shot through with flames and metal
- her limbs called Sicily, Flanders,
- Normandy, Campagna, are all ablaze.
- A handful or two of grass and air
- is enough for prayer and compassion.
- Put away the loaf, the wine, the fruit,
- Until the day of rejoicing and dancing
- and arms wildly waving branches.
- On this night, no table
- Bright with Falernian wine and poppies
- And no weeping and no sleep..
8Mistrals The Footprint
- Of the fleeing man I have
- only the footprint,
- The weight of his body,
- And the wind that blows him.
- No signs, no name,
- no country or town, . . .
- Only the anguish
- that hurries his flight
- hammering pulse,
- gasping breath,
- glistening sweat,
- teeth on edge,
- and the hard dry wind
- that hits his back.
- . . . . .
9Mistrals The Footprint
- I see, I count
- The two thousand footprints
- I go running, running
- across old Earth,
- mixing up his
- poor tracks with mine,
- or I stop and erase them
- with my wild hair,
- or facedown I lick
- away the footprints.
10Mistrals The Footprint
- But the white Earth
- turns eternal,
- stretches endless
- as a chain,
- lengthens out into a snake,
- and the Lord God does not break its back.
- And the footprints go on
- To the end of the world.
11Mistrals Jewish Refugee Woman
- Farther than the west wind I go,
- farther than the stormy petrel.
- I stop, I ask the way, I walk,
- and walk, and get no sleep.
- They cut my Earth away from me,
- all theyre left me is the sea.
- Home, habits, household gods
- Are back there in the village.
- Linden trees go by and beds of reeds
- And the Rhine that taught me speech.
- I havent brought a sprig of mint,
- The scent would make me weep.
- All Im bringing is my breath,
- My blood, my anxious heart.. . .
-
12Mistrals Jewish Refugee Woman
- At every turn of the road
- I leave some of my wealth behind,
- a wave of pine resin,
- a tower of grove of oaks.
- My hand loses its gestures
- of making cider and bread.
- Winnowed clean of memories,
- I will be naked when I reach the sea.
13Szymborskas Still
- In the sealed cars of freight trains
- across the country travels names,
- but where are they going to go,
- and will they ever get out,
- dont ask, cant say, dont know.
- Nathans name bangs his fits on the wall.
- Isaacs name sings in a maddened thrall.
- Sarahs names cries that the water go first
- To Aarons name which is dying of thirst.
- . . . . .
14Szymborskas Still
- A cloud made of people passed over the land.
- From a large cloud a small rain, a sole tear was
shed, - a small rain, a sole tear, a season of lack.
- Into a forest of black veer the tracks.
- Thats so thats so, go the wheels.
- These woods have no clearing.
- Thats so thats so.
- A cargo of cries disappearing.
- Thats so thats so.
- Awakened in deep night on hearing
- thats so thats so,
- the clatter of silence on silence.
15Szymborskas Starvation Camp at Jasko
- Write this down. Write it. In ordinary ink
- on ordinary paper they were given on food,
- all died of hunger. All. How many?
- Its a large meadow. How much grass
- was there per person.? Write it down I dont
know. - History rounds off skeletons to the nearest zero.
- . . . . .
- This is the meadow where it became flesh.
- But the meadow is silent as a bribed witness.
- In the sunlight. Green. Over there is a forest
- for chewing wood, for drinking form under the
bark - a daily helping of landscape,
- until one goes blind. Up there a bird,
16Szymborskas Starvation Camp at Jasko
- that moves across lips as a shadow
- of its nutritious wings. Jaws opened,
- teeth would chomp . . . . .
- On a spit of barbed wire
- a man was swaying.
- They were singing with soil in their mouths.
- A lovely song
- about the way war hits you right in the heart.
- Write about the silence here.
- Yes.
17Mistrals My Social Beliefs
- Position as a pacifist
- the normal reaction that war provokes in a
woman particularly in a former teacher and a
Spanish-American woman who knows about the
paucity of our resources. - a woman without a political party
18Szymborskas The End and the Beginning
- After every war
- someone has to clean up.
- Things wont
- Straighten themselves up, after all.
- Someone has to push the rubble
- to the side of the road,
- so the corpse-filled wagons
- can pass.. . .
- Someone has to drag in a girder
- to prop up a wall,
- Someone has to glaze a window,
- rehang a door.
19Szymborskas The End and the Beginning
- Photogenic its not,
- and takes years.
- All the cameras have left
- for another war.
- . . . . .
- Those who knew
- what was going on her
- must make way for
- those who know little.
- And less than little
- And finally as little as nothing.
- . . . . .
- In the grass that has overgrown
- causes and effects,
- Someone must be stretched out
- blade of grass in his mouth
- gazing at the clouds.
20Szymborskas Reality Demands
- Reality demands
- we also state the following
- life goes on.
- AT Cannae and Borodino,
- At Kosovo Polje and in Guernica.
- There is a gas station
- in a small plaza in Jericho
- and freshly painted
- Benches near Bila Hora.
- Letters travel
- between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,
- . . . . .
21Szymborskas Reality Demands
- So much keeps happening,
- that it must be happening everywhere.
- Where not a stone is left standing,
- there is an ice-cream truck
- Besieged by children.
- . . . . .
- What moral flows from this? Probably none.
- But what really flows is quickly drying blood,
- And as always, some rivers and clouds.
- On the tragic mountain passes
- The wind blows hats off heads
- and we cannot help
- but laugh.
22Szymborskas Children of an Era
23Mistrals The Forbidden Word