Syds Wiersma was RIXT Poet of the Month for December 2022. You can read his original Frisian poems from that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘late autumn’ – is published below.
late autumn in the autumn I’m able to write if writing is a form of dying until the telling turns it into a feeble infatuation I prune wild imaginings cleanse my eyes bloated from drawn-out days the ambition burns brightly for a moment, then lets go sinks into a swoon after a sprinkling of frosty and white in the autumn I’m able to write if writing has to be an act of consolation © Syds Wiersma translation: Trevor Scarse