Sunday 25 July 2021

H.C.Ten Berge: 'Winterzin'




Winterzin

 

Een grijze lucht die urenlang

      op sneeuwen stond,

zich inhield, schuchter toen

een handvol vlokken zond

als een belofte voor de nacht

waarin je wakend lag

te slapen tot de dageraad

het sneeuwen niet meer tegenhield

en je gonzend van geluk

de dag begon en uit het zolderraam

de eeuwen en de witbestoven akkers

naast de landweg overzag,

       en er niets was dat die vervoering brak –

 

Winter Sentence

 

A grey sky which for hours on end

       predicted snow

held back, then shyly sent

a fluttering of flakes

as an assurance to the night

in which you while awake

lay sleeping till the break of dawn

no longer held the snow in check

and you – tingling with delight –

began the day and through the attic’s pane

surveyed the centuries and fields white-dusted

bordering the country road,

       and nothing broke that sense of ecstasy –

 

1 comment:

John Irons said...

This is a further development of a translation found of this poem in Meander Niewusbrief 30:

https://meandermagazine.nl/2021/07/het-vertalen-van-poezie/

The issue in question is what I tend to call makes a translation 'breathe' as in the original. what I mean by 'breathe' is that which the translation of the words into another language cannot produce. At some point the poem has to be translated by a new poem - and what does that involve? What priorities are important, and what is the price piad for any particular ordering of these piorities - assuming they can be agreed upon?