The short poem ‘Even so’ was written for my partner, also a poet, before we officially became an item just over a decade ago. He surprised me by answering my poem with one of his own, written in his mother tongue.
In 2022, I wrote another one to him, riffing off the original’s words and ideas. That one is called ‘Ever raw’, and again he responded with a poem in Afrikaans.
This recording uses both our voices.
These are his translations into English of his Afrikaans poems.
(Copyright: Andries Samuel)
day
scoured
scrubbed from dirt
seasoned to sense
skin and bone gone
salted against decay
trussed and neat
you don't need to. you feed me already, someplace i am raw even so
And the second one, written and translated this year:
already
there is little we can do
against the unworked tissue
the hacked body
the sinews
the glands
an untold landscape
solidly before us
bodily in against us
as we catch ourselves
translated into new sense
where shall we stand
when an outmoded youth intercepts us
I’m just saying
it is that way already
again
and again
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