Melanie Grobler - vertaling in Engels
Translation by the author
Melanie Grobler was born in Warmbaths and grew up in Rustenburg, Transvaal. She studied at the University of Pretoria: BA in Psychology and Philosophy and competed a degree of Doctor of History of Art in 2002 − her doctoral thesis, Against fixity: a hybrid reading of Breyten Breytenbach’s art, poetry, writing, aesthetics and philosophy. She has been involved with art, writing and process facilitation since 1980 by developing cultural projects at the Institute for Further Learning, at Unisa and the Bureau for Cultural Affairs, University of Pretoria, where she was also an art curator and art historian for seven years. She trained and painted for five years at The Art Studio in Pretoria and participated in twelve group art exhibitions during the period 1982 -2002. Her figurative work explored the emotive qualities of the single image. Between 1992 and 2000 she published short stories in six and poetry in seven collections. Her first collections of poems, Tye en Swye in die Lewe van Hester H received the Rapport Prize in 1992. Her second collection of poems, Die Waterbreker, was published in 2003.
Seacoast
Seacoast - deep breathing along the beach
years sucked down along the coastline
to the gray embankment of sleep
where the undertow is running stronger
the woman sways when the cry comes
stronger than the trembling of being alive
shivering further along the coastal path
footsteps crunching on the gravel
and stumbling in the tangled seaweed
pocked by salt, back to her darkest dreams
that flood the half-moon of the bay
the soft backwash on the swaying gray shore
staggering shuddering as she reaches out towards first light
just before the expected hour of the winter’s morning.
Daybreak under the weighted cry of the night keeper’s eyes.
Seacoast - deep breathing along the boulders
years sucked down along the beach
but a sudden and unexpected change in weather
become days of plummeting and tossing of fish bones in the breakers
delusional winds, smothered birds caught in the undertow of rain
leaden water hanging in the sky
the woman watches the rain spatter against the panes
today of all days, she does not deserved
this continual gray drip on the roof of reeds
cursing the bleak conditions she sends it along a coastal path
to a body of water resilient against ocean storms
a river miraculously flowing away from the sea
becoming stream, becoming furrow, becoming landscape
woman looking at the downpour for seconds, minutes, hours.
Daybreak under the weighted cry of the night keeper’s eyes
( © Melanie Grobler. Translation of unpublished Afrikaans poem: Seekus.)
