every kiss your mouth gives reaches my ears, for the deep places of the earth echo me your words

        I 

Earth will turn against you 

If your soul betrays my soul. 

A shudder of anguish 

will run through the waters. 

The world has been brighter 

since you made me yours, 

when we stood silent 

by a flowering thorn, 

and love’s fragrance 

pierced us like the thorn. 

But earth will send forth vipers 

against you if you betray my soul; 

I will break my barren knees 

no child sits upon. 

Christ will die in my heart, 

and the door of my house 

will break the beggar’s knocking hand 

and turn the suffering woman away. 

        II 

Every kiss your mouth gives 

reaches my ears, 

for the deep places of the earth 

echo me your words. 

The dust of the pathways 

holds the scent of your footsoles, 

and through the mountains 

I track you like a deer. 

The clouds above my house 

show me the woman you love. 

 Sneak like a thief to kiss her 

in the darkness under earth, 

but when you tilt her chin up, 

 you’ll see my tearstained face. 

        III 

God will keep the sun from you 

if you don’t walk beside me. 

God won’t let you drink 

if I don’t tremble on the water. 

He won’t let you sleep, except 

in the deep nest of my hair. 

        IV 

If you let go from me you crush my soul 

even in the moss of the road; 

hunger and thirst gnaw at you 

on every hill and plain, 

and wherever you go, sunset 

will bleed my wounds. 

And I slip from your tongue 

though you call another woman, 

and I stick like the taste 

of brine in your throat, 

and whether you hate or praise or plead, 

to me you cry, to me alone. 

        V 

If you go and die far from me, 

you’ll hold out your hollowed hand 

for ten years underground, 

to catch my tears, 

feeling the trembling 

 of the suffering flesh, 

until my bones crumble 

into dust on your face. 

[Gabriela Mistral {1889-1957} 'God Wills It', from Poems that Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words that Move Them ed. by Anthony Holden and Ben Holden]