Martjie Bosman – vertaling in Engels
Friday, November 18th, 2011Martjie Bosman – Vertaal deur/ translated by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt
Martjie Bosman was born in Groblersdal and matriculated at the Ben Viljoen High School. She studied at the University of Pretoria where she earned a Masters degree in Afrikaans literature in 1985. For two years, she taught Mathematics at the Warmbad High School. In 1981, she was appointed as a literary researcher at the Centre for South African Literary Research of the HSRC. Later she carried out research on social questions and rural development. In 2000 she became the archivist for Afrikaans radio programmes at the SABC. In 2004 she was appointed editor at Protea Book House. Her poems have appeared in literary journals since 1990 and her first volume of poems, Landelik, for which she received the Ingrid Jonker Prize, was published in 2003. Her second volume, entitled Toevallige tekens, appeared in 2010.
TREASON
We have even let down the aunts,
forlorn in little village houses with fern-clogged verandas,
in rooms in old-age homes with leftover wool.
They scowl at us beneath their bonnet brims
from old black-and-white snapshots –
like Aunt San, stout of body,
lifting her head after the cattle-slaughtering
in the backyard where she stirs a pot of soap.
Later she would call the neighbour’s daughter
to the fence to pass over a bar of soap
with which Ma feels duty-bound to get the tea towels washed.
Before their staid eyes we hardly dare appear.
Better close the photo album instead.
(From: Landelik, Protea Boekhuis, 2002)
(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)
THE GREEN FINGER OF GOD
the green finger of God moves
over the crust of Earth’s brown clod
cleaves a valley through shallow lakes rivers
draws a mountain range out of the clay
sketches fynbos rooistompie and heather delicately
the bright bee-eater against the new riverbank
the mighty old grey one the daft baboon sketched well
and last but not least the upright one even better
the hand of God builds a wall
later a bridge too humans clamber over it
stamp the flower shoot the buck burn the tree
the finger of God writes upon the wall
(From: Landelik, Protea Boekhuis, 2002)
(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)
OMNIA SOL TEMPERAT
This winter the city is lovely
and I know nothing of it.
Only on Sunday afternoon did the sun
fall golden on my windscreen,
the tarred street and the telephone wire.
The plane trees and jacarandas gold
the good sun falls profusely
through apartment windows.
The sparrows and bulbuls peck
at orange dates on the pavement
and the soft sunlight sifts over my city.
The pristine sky is winter-blue
and the sun shines down
glossy on a child’s head.
The sun brings life, the sun brings warmth.
The dear sun shines
upon my people and my land.
(From: Landelik, Protea Boekhuis, 2002)
(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)
ONEDAYCLEAN
In remote small towns you can almost
predict the step-by-step decay:
You drive in streets of patchwork tar
past hawkers of tomatoes, onions, cabbage;
donkeys, goats and bare-necked chickens
graze among building rubble on open plots,
at incomplete houses corrugated iron sheets
rust against sagging fences
and youngsters lean lazily against car wrecks.
Then, suddenly round another corner,
you’re struck breathless
where a curtain of brilliant blue
trails lusciously into a shoddy garden
and like an accidental sign
alters the tone of the whole neighbourhood.
(From: Toevallige tekens, Protea Boekhuis, 2010)
(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)