zkv87

ZKV87

TURDUS MERULA 

The blackbird on the neighbour’s antiquated TV mast is only about four metres higher up than I am. She sings, trills, gurgles her delight at being alive. So I assume – for why else would she do so, unless trying to attract a mate.

I am busy with Eddie on the lawn. He has been bequeathed a bone, stripped clean of flesh by his father. A veritable osso buco. This is his first experience of bone-chewing. He ignores my encouraging comments. He is totally absorbed.

I try to keep one eye on Eddie, one ear on the blackbird. Our duel of whistling reaches its climax.

The blackbird flies off to a roof thirty metres away, her song just as penetrating as ever. ‘Bloody amateurs,’ she triumphantly proclaims.

Jan Hanlo: 'Kroop de mist'

Kroop de mist

Kroop de mist tussen de bomen?
Dan is het herfst.

Vloog de bonte kraai over ’t dak?

Dan is het herfst.

Zaten de blaren als vanen aan de takken?

Dan is het herfst.

Did the mist

Did the mist creep among the trees?

Then autumn’s here.

Did the motley crow sweep over the roof?

Then autumn’s here.

Did the leaves clatter like vanes on the branches?

Then autumn’s here.

Jan Hanlo: 'Vers'

Vers

Op mijn gitaar kan ik zacht een snaar aanslaan

en dan mijn vingers vormen tot een ongewoon akkoord

of laat des avonds langs de door de storm beruiste bomen gaan

’k Kan bladeren in een boek met platen

of op een nieuw vel van mijn bloc een streep etten

of dwalen naar de stenen bank waar we eens stonden

Of met de trein naar Zandvoort naar het strand gaan

en naar de grijze zee en de verlaten branding kijken

and daar met gave schoongespoelde schelpjes in mijn hand staan

Verse

I can gently pluck a string on my guitar

and then form my fingers into an unusual chord

or late in the evening walk past gale-rustled trees

Can leaf through a book with illustrations

or draw a line on a new page in my pad

or wander over to the stone bench where we once stood

Or take the train to Zandvoort and go to the beach

and gaze at the grey sea and the desolate surf

and stand there with flawless smooth-rinsed shells in my hand

Sophia Elisabet Brenner (née Weber) wrote poetry in six languages. Here is one in German

Die Unvermeidliche Flucht menschlicher Tage/

Vorgestellet in Abbildung einer

Sand-Uhr/

Bey Beerdigung

Des Weiland Wohl Ehrenvesten und Groß-Achtbahren/

Nun mehro bey GOTT WohlSeligen

Herrn BARTHOLOMÆI Klüvers/

Den 19. Februarii dieses jetztlauffenden 1693.sten Jahres.

BEwehrtes Spiegel-Glas/ in dem die Sterbligkeit/

Der schnellen Jahre Flucht leibhafftig an zu schauen/

Dein Sand erinnert mich wie wir auf Trieb-Sand bauen

Und schätzen offtermahls vom Ziel/ uns viel zu weit.

Da doch dis Gläser-Paar/ so über sich gestürtzt/

Eins/ auf die Wiege sieht’ und eins die Bahre zeiget/

Misst was verfloßen ist/ lehrt wie der Rest sich neiget

Der jeden Augenblick ein Theil des Lebens kürtzt

O wahres Ebenbild des Kummers der uns qwählt/

Uns handelt Angst und Noth/ wie deinen Sand die Wellen/

Uns drückt so manche Last und dräut uns gar zu fällen/

Daß man der Trübsahl mehr als Sand am Ufer zählt.

Auch sonsten läst der Mensch als selbst der Zeiten Raub/

Gantz füglich/ auser dem/ der Sand-Uhr sich vergleichen/

Jst/ weil sein Körper steht und wann er wird zur Leichen/

Jm Leben brüchig Glaß/ und nach dem Tode/ Staub.

Wohl dem der weil er noch des Leibes Umhüll/ trägt

Und eh die Zeit verläufft/ sich auf die Heimfahrt schikket/

Dem Welt und Eitelkeit/ die Sinnen nicht berükket/

Damit er fertig sey wann seine Stunde schlägt.

Mein Freund auch auf der Bahr/ wie wohl ichs nicht gedacht

Dich in so kurtzer Zeit der Gruben zu vertrauen/

Doch weil wir uns gewiß auf ewig wieder schauen/

So scheid ich wohl gemuth/ indeßen gute Nacht.

The ineluctable flight of human days/

As represented in the depiction of an

Hour-Glass/

At the funeral of

the formerly most upright and extremely worthy/

Now with GOD blessed and reunited

Mr BARTHOLOMÆUS Klüver/

19 February of this present year of 1693.

Well-tested mirror-glass/in which mortality/

Of swiftly fleeing years embodied we see stand/

Your sand reminds me how we build on shifting sand

And often from our goal/ so far removed can be.

Yet here this glassy pair/ up-ended at our birth

With one that views the cradle/ one that shows the bier/

Lacks what has downward run/reveals the end is near

And teaches us each instant shortens life on earth.

Oh most true image of the misery we bear/

Just as the waves the sand/do fear and need us steer/

Threatened by such dire loads far from our course we veer/

And count our sorrows more as sand upon the shore.

Man may in other ways/ a prey to time’s sore thrust/

With this same hour-glass yet be suitably compared/

Is/while his body stands and when as corpse is bared/

In this life fragile glass/ and after death/ mere dust.

Happy the one who while in human flesh still clad

And ere his time is o’er/prepares his journey home/

Whose mind this world and vanity can’t cause to roam/

Who when his hour is come is ready and not sad.

My friend here on the bier/ I never thought I might

Entrust you to the grave/after so short a time/

But since we soon shall meet/ though in a heav’nly clime/

I leave you well consoled/ and until then good night.

Sophia Elisabet Brenner: 'Min ven...' beautifully turned writing

SONNET

To her dear husband  Deputy Judge

ELIAS BRENNER,

Upon the first day of JanuaryAnno 1691

My Friend! I ought of course on New Year’s gifts be musing

Provided that my powers/ just as my will were good/

And had not any lack of means in my way stood/

Then keenly I would seek and something new be choosing/

Instead my thoughts are fixed on bounties in full ration/

Which are not found on sale in every grocer’s stall

And which by women once were hardly grasped withal/

I will in well-turned rhymes a dozen lines/ now fashion/

I think that such a gift will give to you most pleasure/

That I and no one else alone have laboured on/

For you find secondhand things irksome beyond measure/

And I think likewise and with you agree thereon

Nor will I e’er relinquish the idea I treasure

That borrowed feathers/ least of all befit a Swan.

Whoever would reflect on where time’s ever stealing

Should note with all due care this newly started year/

It greys so fast/ as are both snow and frost revealing/

It ages even while its birth-day is still here.

Today it first begins/ and yet our end presages

The more we gather years/ the fewer are our days/

Eternal God most true/ whose years turn back no pages/

Help us in time to avert from this fair world our gaze!

Teach us to well observe how short is our life’s season/

And that the final goal we edge towards inchmeal/

To see there is/ in all combined both rhyme and reason/

Our life is frail as glass and time’s wheel is of steel.

zkv 86

ZKV86

the drift of days

‘Quick, said the bird’

The entry of Eddie, a Cesky puppy, a couple of months after the death of our Sealyham bitch, has strengthened an on-going tendency. The nearer the end-game, the nearer the moment, the gradual breakdown of a sense of linear time. But Eddie lives in the moment, and every moment is like a detached balloon, floating free.

Detached or released? Detachment implies distance, but release is into the moment and is complete presence. 

Sound and echo in the rose garden.

Kingo and 'Lad Tidens Hiul omdrive' - the whole story

As so often happens, what Kingo originally wrote is drastically shortened in the Danish Hymn Book. In the original version of 1689, Kingo has written a hymn of nine verses called ’En anden Nyt Aars Sang’, which follows the frequent pattern of an introductory verse marking the change from the old year to the new, followed by a verse praising the role of the Church and its Sacraments, and a verse calling on God’s blessing to the Danish royal house and its role in maintaining the state of the nation and preventing the ravages of war, disease and hunger.

Then come the three provisos; before verse 5 (Should war have taken place, this verse can be sung, otherwise omitted), before verse 6 (Likewise is this verse also to be sung, if disease has been on the rampage) and before verse 7 (If there has been a dearth of food, this verse can be sung). Verse eight extols once more the role of the church in helping us to improve our lives.

And finally comes verse 9, the only verse which appears in the Danish Hymn Book. Underneath, after the original date, there is the laconic remark ’Bearbejdet 1857’ (revised in 1857), but the only alteration, apart from a modernisation of the spelling, is in line 2, where a passive verb is changed into an active one, without this having any drastic effect on the meaning.

This then, is the original verse 9:

Lad Tidens Hiul omdrive,

Lad vexles Dag og Nat,

Men lad, O Gud, os blive

Fast paa dit Hierte sat!

I Jesu Christi Navn,

Lad Aaret til os bære

Alt hvad dit Navn kand ære,

Og tiene til vort Gavn.

Let time’s wheel keep on turning,

Let day and night change place,

But let, O God, our yearning

On Thy heart fixed find grace!

And in Christ’s holy name,

May this year, we implore Thee, 

Bring what can sing Thy glory,

And help us do the same.

Elisabeth Eybers: 'Domineesdogter' in English

Domineesdogter

My vader, as godsgetuie, het alles gesien

in die glans van die Ongesiene. 'n Droewige saak

op aarde sal in die hemel vergoed word. Sy taak

was die helder opdrag om in te lig en te dien.

Vernaamlik op Sondag. Verder was hy ons vrind

en die vrind van elke ontmoeteling op sy pad.

Hy was, volgens nekrologieë, alom bemind.

Ek kon hom nie volg nie. Ek kan hom nie minder skat.

Clergyman’s Daughter

My father, as God’s witness, has seen all on earth

as suffused by the Unseen. Anything that is sad

below will be made good in heaven. The task he had

was the clear assignment to illuminate and serve.

Chiefly on Sundays. He was otherwise our friend

and the friend of all he met, as they would confess.

He was loved everywhere, obituaries penned.

I could not follow him. Cannot value him any the less.

Jacob Daniël du Toit: 'Die tarentaal' in English translation

Die tarentaal

Die kruiwawiel se skreeugeluid

kerm hy droefgeestig uit

terwyl die skeemring vinnig daal,

die tarentaal.

Hy soek – en dit is ook al laat –

vir hom ’n kameraad,

om in ’n boom die eensaamheid

en nag te slyt.

Sáám sal hul in ’n blinkblaarboom

half slaap, half waak, half droom,

en by die naadring van verderf,

alléén nie sterf.

*

Ek het gemik, en met die knal

het een dood neergeval;

die ander vlieg met wilde krag

wèg in die nag!

The guinea fowl

The barrow with its groaning wheel

gives out its mournful squeal

while dusk lets fall its sudden cowl:

the guinea fowl.

It’s seeking – though the hour is late –

another fowl as mate

to pass night’s loneliness maybe

up in a tree.

They’ll share a dogwood’s leafy gleam,

half sleep, half wake, half dream,

and when their ending then draws nigh

alone not die.

*

I’ve taken aim, and at the sound

one’s fallen to the ground;

the other with wild strength takes flight

into the night!

J.C. Bloem: 'Ademen' in English translation

ADEMEN

Eenzaam bevonden onder ’t flonkerstralen

Der najaarssterren boven de gerust-

Geworden wereld, wordt zich ’t hart bewust:

Leven is niet veel meer dan ademhalen.

Maar dat is: in de diepten van dit dal

De oneindge ruimte tot zich in te leiden

En, na één wankel ogenblik van beiden,

Die te hergeven aan ’t beroofd heelal.

BREATHING

Finding itself alone beneath the gleam

Of autumn stars that glitter high above

A world grown calm, the heart can now approve:

There’s little more than breathing to life’s scheme.

But that is: in this vale’s depths to coerce

Into one’s self a space immensely greater,

And then, one shared unsteady moment later,

Return it to the plundered universe.