Mistral, Gabriela

English

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© Providence College  The author(s) permits users to copy, distribute, display, and perform this work under the following conditions: (1) the original author(s) must be given proper attribution; (2) this work may not be used for commercial purposes; (3) the users may not alter, transform, or build upon this work; (4) users must make the license terms of this work clearly known for any reuse or distribution of this work. Upon request, as holder of this work’s copyright, the author(s) may waive any or all of these conditions.  The Prose Poem: An International Journal is produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) for the Providence College Digital Commons. http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/prosepoems/ THE PROSE POEM: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL  Volume 6 | 1997 The Fig Gabriela Mistral  Gabriela Mistral THE FIG Touch me: it is the softness of good satin, and when you open me, what an unexpected rose! Do you not remember some king's black cloak under which a redness burned? I bloom inside myself to enjoy myself with an inward gaze, scarcely for a week. Afterward, the satin generously opens in a great fold of long Con-golese laughter. Poets have not known the color of night, nor the Palestinian fig. We are both the most ancient blue, a passionate blue, which richly concen-trates itself because of its ardor. If I spill my pressed flowers into your hand, I create a dwarf meadow for your pleasure; I shower you with the meadow's bouquet until cover-ing your feet. No. I keep the flowers tied—they make me itch; the resting rose also knows this sensation. I am also the pulp of the rose-of-Sharon, bruised. Allow my praise to be made: the Greeks were nourished by me, and they have praised me less than Juno, who gave them nothing. Translated from the Spanish by Maria Jacketti 

The Fig

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https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1429&amp;context=prosepoem

The Fig

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