Versindaba kompetisie vir vertaalde gedigte (44)
Jericho Brown. Vertaling van Engels in Afrikaans. Vert. deur René Bohnen.
Dupleks
‘n Gedig is ‘n huiswaartse gebaar.
Dit stel somber eise wat ek eien as my eie.
Onthou stel somberder eise as my eie:
My laaste liefste het ‘n wynrooi kar gehad.
My eerste liefde het ‘n wynrooi kar gehad.
Hy was blitsig en aaklig, so lank soos my pa.
Standvastig en aaklig was my lang pa
hard soos ‘n haelbui. Hy’t merke gelaat.
Motreën tref sag, maar laat sy eie merk
Soos die geluid van ‘n ma wat weer huil.
Soos die geluid van my ma wat weer huil,
Eindig geen toonval waar dit begin het nie.
Geen verslaande eindig hoe ons begin het nie.
‘n Gedig is ‘n huiswaartse gebaar.
***
Duplex
Jericho Brown
A poem is a gesture toward home.
It makes dark demands I call my own.
Memory makes demands darker than my own:
My last love drove a burgundy car.
My first love drove a burgundy car.
He was fast and awful, tall as my father.
Steadfast and awful, my tall father
Hit hard as a hailstorm. He’d leave marks.
Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark
Like the sound of a mother weeping again.
Like the sound of my mother weeping again,
No sound beating ends where it began.
None of the beaten end up how we began.
A poem is a gesture toward home.
Bronverwysing:
Brown, Jericho. 2019. The Tradition. London: Pan Macmillan