Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, better known as Chilean poet and educator Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), the first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote this sentence in her prose poem "La oración de la maestra" ("The Teacher's Prayer"):
Dame el levantar los ojos de mi pecho con heridas, al entrar cada mañana a mi escuela. (Lift my vision from my broken heart as I enter my school every morning.)
I want to start with the subjectivity and difficulty of translation. I take literary liberties since ojos literally means eyes (I use vision), pecho means chest (I use heart), and heridas means wounds (I use broken). Not all translations agree with me. I realize that eyes can be used metaphorically, as in "Mine eyes have seen the coming of the Lord," from Julia Ward Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Presumably, Howe's use of eyes alludes to the human spirit, but I feel, rightly or wrongly, that vision is a more expansive, or existential, term for Mistral's ojos where English is concerned. As for chest wounds, I believe the more common English term broken heart is as figurative as the author's intent.
Now, what makes Mistral's sentence sing so universally is its ascendent humility and unqualified passion for the children she teaches. We have heard the apt expression "Don't bring your work home" and the equally applicable "Don't bring your home life to work." As students or parents, we do not want teachers to allow outside pressures, disappointments, and sorrows to influence the way they teach or treat their students. Whatever bad happens to teachers outside the classroom should stay there.
Mistral's way with words elevates common wisdom to a summoning of her God for granting her spiritual faith, hope, and charity in teaching her students. In doing so, she transforms a simple statement into an essential, transcendent prayer.
