Poem of the month

Aggie van der Meer was the RIXT poet of the  month February 2021. You can read her original Frisian poems of that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘The geat Xi Jinping’ – is published here.

The Great Xi Jinping

they greet
they bow
then demand to speak first

he, Xi, perplexed
his power, awarded to him
his strong hand and purpose
will not be taken away by no one
was there any other way open
to them, to him
was there another choice?

he won’t bow down
lest he becomes afraid
his wrath will guard him

now that he knows of their mistake
he’ll save them

the first word,
he will say
remains my due
as is the last

in their silent defence
already threatening
they know that his fear
will force him to imprint
his law, his will and thoughts
on their lips
in their heads

no day when they can forget
no night it won’t hound them
no way out to be found
not for them, nor for him
the last word, he says, has been said

let the world know.

© Aggie van der Meer
Trans. Trevor M. Scarse

 

Syds Wiersma was the RIXT poet of the  month January 2021. You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘Sense of Place’ – is published here below.

Sense of Place
Nije Biltpôlen/Noarderleech

No morning person I slip on rough
frozen sludge. Frosted polder dikes.
A white death of bulrush washed ashore.
Rushes sharp brown like wrecking tools.

I follow the gully, got no other choice, even
as a kid I walked on banks of winding ditches,
stand-ins when short of alternative channels.
A strip of island over there, here lies extramural

land seized beneath a sky that plays its
trump card of innocence slick blue, lets 
the hours climb glassily, thaw into a marsh
of finisterre. Timidly the stream crawls on.

Back in Nijesyl I stumble over humps and bumps,
snap up chirping sparrows, presumably to release
them like flatfish from coastal works later on.
Now no-nonsense my stride across the concrete.

The fields are already leaking water from pipes
on the Aldrij. The sun belly sleighing across
a thin sheet of ice. Moorhens pass over quickly:
hungry for forgotten blessed daily bread.

© Syds Wiersma
Trans. Trevor M. Scarse

Yva Hokwerda was the RIXT poet of the  month December 2020. You can read her  original Frisian poems of that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘Introvert days of Christmas (by the old radio)’ – is published here below.

 

Introvert days of Christmas (by the old radio)

Turn your keyboard upside down, come on, strangle that mouse
Push all the tables against the walls, throw your chairs out of the house.
Let loose all the backbiters, drive every troll back into the thickets,
Dance with yourself at unforgiven hours, stretch your weak calves the thickest.

Drive the Sugar Berg up the wall, hear his angry bellow
Write his logarithmic outcome one by one to zero
Hang your prettiest festoons across that meaningless LCD relic
Free your inner child while belting out and with a firm dropkick.

Jump to the right, to the left, up and down and yell
Your home office is no longer your prison cell!
In the morning, in the evening, on bulletproof coffee, all that talk
You somehow thought your mind spoke out rightly. Not to be a broken clock.

Let the net dry, spin your wool with yarn and glow towards fiction
Whisper the tone seeking escape; wonder, from strange graphic expression
Raise your hands towards the farthest suns at night, gather your own from unframed light
Aquiver streams past you what may strike, your sensation is what Earth supplied.

© Yva Hokwerda
Trans. Trevor M. Scarse

Jan Kleefstra was the RIXT poet of the  month November 2020. You can read his  original Frisian poems of that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘On windless days larks don’t bring me to tears’ – is published here below.

On windless days larks don’t bring me to tears

not even with the sad confession that the sun
now only rises in shuttered eyes

how long will wings carry the body
through finely meshed rain like before

dragging heavy at times shrill tones across the world

as a boy I sought beneath the same heavens
starved for a meadow bird

casting farther than ever
a kind-hearted light
out ahead of the rain

© Jan Kleefstra
Translation: Trevor M. Scarse

Anne Heegstra was the RIXT poet of the  month October 2020. You can read her original Frisian poems of that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘Headamskampen’ – is published here.

Headamskampen 

in the prickly cold
practically on thin ice
he skated purposely

assured, as he knew
of canal and ditch
crack and furrow

he gave his hankering
ample room to breathe 
yet glided restrainedly

as his skates led him
past the Eleven Lakes
and as many cities

reeds and seams rustled
mirrored in cadence
of blades sliding across the ice

until the dusk forsook
the hours of the day
and embraced the evening

behind closed gate
the broken daylight leaves
the polder in dreams

© Anne Heegstra
Translation: Trevor M. Scarse

Peter Vermaat was the RIXT poet of the  month September 2020. You can read his original Dutch poem of that month – ‘Ode to the storyteller’ – here. The translation is published below.

 

Ode to the storyteller

                            for mindert wijnstra

he makes fluid what had been discarded
congealed in the bin of time for years
he can resurrect the ladies of the sea
knows where the devil dances in the dark

put on top of a horse by an old pack rat
he leads you into the forest of imagination
where the white lady restyles herself
light he sees, yet it chafes with the bodach

born and raised in a village the heath 
caused an uproar with foresters aiming rifle
that’s the birthplace of a great storyteller

as a teacher he knew how to form everyone
let the children dream beyond fish and cattle
now the sky brings setbacks and sorrows

© Peter Vermaat
Translation: Trevor M. Scarse

Cornelis van der Wal was the RIXT poet of the  month August 2020. You can read his original Frisian poems of that month  here. The translation of one of them – ‘The ghost and the tree – is published below.

The ghost and the tree

An old house, a tree stands beside.
Once he lived there in his dreams.
Now, however, the north wind blows

and he scrapes by in thin clothes.
Maybe he is dead, he knows nothing.
Will the house even exist without him?

Blue hangs the day above the clouds,
my green hair freezes.
A hovering kestrel wavers

between my eyebrows.
I am the tree, fruits and birds
tumble from my branches.

The roots creep slowly underneath the house,
cracks snake their way through the old walls.
The ghost would like to go back to his father.


© Cornelis van der Wal
Translation: Trevor M. Scarse