Sunlight on a City Wall

(Warning: this poem may contain traces of Obe Postma and Jan Dotinga)

 

 

First the miracle of speech
The living room doors open. A tongue gives voice to things
Sounds coalesce as words. Silence slips between
forcing them apart. Then it accelerates
Language expands and proliferates, and a good thing too
aren’t we all too unique
for uniformity?

Habtamu! Aant Jelle! Aukje! Max!
Come on, a thousand shards of sun are shining through the leaves
I’m shouting you awake with my fingers in my ears
Come to the outdoor café – no coats needed – to save the language
to pronounce a new future
We’ll order something to eat and drink
We’ll look around contentedly
and then all afternoon
we won’t do bugger all
No, not a bloody thing
Such beautiful weather!
Let the people look after the language for once
We’re living here
we’re living now
and the guys on the fat bikes shout
Easy, bro!
Bro, easy!

Sinneljocht

That’s my word
It suits me like a name
If I breathe it in
it fills me up

In language
is it always myself
I rediscover?

Just out of school
I come to the city on the bus
On the roof of the tallest tower
a cockerel shines

Getting out
I shield my eyes with my hand

A yellow wall with long windows
emblazoned with a single word:

Sinneljocht

Years later and it’s still there
Sometimes a letter’s loose

In the classroom the teacher says look around
look out of the window, make sentences from what you see
what people say, graffiti and signs

and a gate opens in my mind
never to close again.

Sinneljocht

My word falls like a razor
on the city, slicing the buildings open
My language shines like a cockerel on the tallest tower
My language glitters on the handlebars of a bike
leaning on the wall of a church
in a village you visit
because it’s so wonderfully quiet – but
not completely silent. Louder than blood, words rustle
through the vessels of my ear.

–       So I can say, the language is doing better than ever!
–       Yes… but… my nephews
the way they talk sets your teeth on edge!

–       Still I say, it’s going better, look how many people troll each other online
in their own—
–       Yes… but… on the squares and in the villages the kids don’t play anymore in—

–       I say, all these writers and poets—
–       Yes… but… the print runs—

–       Our language is dying, in another generation no one will speak it
–       Yes… but… I know a four-year-old who talks thirteen to the dozen
with a tongue like Obe Postma’s pen at its very best!

I take part in a workshop in a café
Someone asks us to write down our favourite word
I think of my daughter’s favourite word:
Oankrûperswaar.
The woman nexts to me writes down:
Ruozzemuozje.
Together we make a sentence

As it ruozzemuozzet yn de loft
dan is it oankrûperswaar

It’s like a ghost in my throat
Who would have thought
that in the immeasurable silence between the stars
on a hot blue afternoon
in the green of the low country
cowhouse windows could flash signals to each other?

Sinneljocht

At 300,000 kilometres a second my word races
through my body. My language shines on the rails of a cherry picker and swarms
on silver water like a million fish. My language has a sharp edge and bright
feathers, my language has a big mouth, a trembling heart

I’ve made it my job
Sunlight on a city wall
Listening with your eyes
Now and then someone asks me
Why do you write in your own language?
Maybe the language chooses us, I’d say
But to be honest it’s a question I don’t hear much anymore.

 

 

Translation: David Colmer