1. By Gabriela Mistral
Death Sonnet I
1. From the icy niche where men placed you 2. I lower your body to the sunny, poor earth. 3. They didn't know I too must sleep in it 4. and dream on the same pillow.

2. 5. I place you in the sunny ground, with a 6
5. I place you in the sunny ground, with a 6. mother's sweet care for her napping child, 7. and the earth will be a soft cradle 8. when it receives your hurt childlike body

3. 9. I scatter bits of earth and rose dust, 10
9. I scatter bits of earth and rose dust, 10. and in the moon's airy and blue powder 11. what is left of you is a prisoner
If you google “blue moon” it says a moon can appear blue after a volcanic eruption. If this is a metaphor what could the blue moon and the implied volcanic eruption be?

4. 9. I leave singing my lovely revenge. 10
9. I leave singing my lovely revenge. 10. No hand will reach into the obscure depth 11. to argue with me over your handful of bones.

5. II
12. This long fatigue, will be greater one day
13. and the soul will tell the body it does not want to go on
14. dragging its mass by the rosy path,
15. Where men, content to live, walk on

6. 16. You will feel beside you, digging briskly,
17. another sleeper comes to the quiescent town.
18. I'll wait until they covered me completely...
19. And we will talk for an eternity!
What does she mean by “another sleeper?” What or where is “the quiescent town?”

7. 20. Only then you will know why your flesh
21. did not mature for those profound bones
22. you had to descend, without tiredness, to sleep.

8. 23. There will be light in the dark place of fate,
24. you will know our alliance was written in the stars
25. and once broken the huge covenant, you had to die ...

9. 26. Wrong hands took your life from the day
III
26. Wrong hands took your life from the day
27. when, at a sign of the stars, you left the set of
28. snowy lilies, blooming in joy.
29. Evil hands entered tragically on it...

10. 30. And I said to the Lord: - "For mortals paths they take him
31. beloved shadow, they cannot guide!
32. Tear him away, Lord, of those fatal hands
33. or sink him into the long sleep you can give!

11. 34. I cannot call him, I cannot go with him!
35. His boat pushes a black wind of tempest.
36. Return him to my arms or you will reap him in bloom".

12. 37. The rosy boat of his life stopped...
38. Did I not know what love is, had I no mercy?
39. You, who will judge me, you understand, oh Lord!