A Noel by Stephen Zelnick

A NOEL by Stephen Zelnick

The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) was the first Latin American writer to

receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1945). Mistral was born poor as dirt in a mountain

village and began her life as a rural schoolteacher, a devotion she carried throughout her

celebrated life. Her book Tenura (1924), a pioneering work, was a collection of children’s

poetry, filled with tenderness.

Mistral is beloved in Latin America, where one finds numerous schools named for her.

To Noel is from her first published book, Desolation (1922).

In Latin America commercialized Christmas is now everywhere, with stores crammed

to the rafters with buzzing and chattering toys of war and glamor. However, the feeling

of Navidad still belongs to the children humbly gathering handfuls of grass to offer the

camels bearing the Three Kings (Los Tres Magos) on their journey to celebrate the baby

Jesus. Navidad lives in the quiet weave of a child’s imagination.

 

A Noel

To Noel

!Noel, el de la noche del prodigio,

Noel of the marvelous night, Noel de barbas caudalosas, Noel of the tremendous beard,

Noel de las sorpresas delicadas

Noel of delicate surprises

y las pisadas sigilosas!

and secret footsteps we cannot hear.

 

Esta noche te dejo mi calzado

This night I leave you my shoes

 

colgado en los balcones;

set out on the window sill.

antes que hayas pasado por mi casa

before you pass my house. no agotes los bolsones. Please don’t empty your sack

 

Noel, Noel, vas a encontrar mojadas Noel,

Noel you will find

mis medias de rocío,

my stockings are wet with dew,

espiando con ojos picarones

for my mischievous eyes have been spying

tus barbazas de río…

on the river of your beard.

 

Sacude el llanto y deja cada una Take away the crying, leave my shoes tiesa, dura y llenita,

firm and hard and full,

con el anillo de la Cenicienta

stuffed with toys, Cinderella’s wedding ring,

y el lobo de Caperucita…

Red Riding Hood’s wolf.

 

Y no olvides a Marta. También deja

And there’s Martha, don’t forget!

su zapatito abierto.

She, too, left her empty shoe.

Es mi vecina, y yo la cuido, desde

she lives next door, and since her mama died

que su mamita ha muerto.

I look after her.

 

Noel, viejo Noel, de las mazanas

Old Noel, Noel of big hands

Rebosadas de dones,

overflowing with gifts,

De los ojitos picaros y azules

Noel of twinkling blue eyes

Y la barba en vellones! …

and beard of streaming fleece.

 

[Tr. Doris Dana, Selected Poems of Gabriel Mistral,

Johns Hopkins Press, 1961 ]


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