Breyten Breytenbach. Vertaling in Engels
Breyten Breytenbach: Vertaling uit Afrikaans in Engels. Vert. deur Ampie Coetzee.
beloved, language
beloved, I’m writing to you in this tongue
because losing it leaves me wordless
it is a gruesome experience
to scratch in the graves of forebears
I am ashamed
this language, beloved
dissolves in the mouth as the last taste
of the pebble we used to suck against thirst,
disappears because it was in the mouth
of corrupted white people
even though in places it touched a universe
with meagre words
I want to sing about our love for a last time
from mouth to wound to merciless soil
I am ashamed that I now have to be ashamed
the mouth is too secret not to feel pain
I will scratch open the grave
and bury the pebble between your thighs
and swallow the last bit of spit.
death is never having to be thirsty again,
my beloved language
(“liefling,taal”, from die beginsel van stof, p.18. Human & Rousseau 2011.)
