Another translation of a Dutch piece of mine. It's not quite what it was, but it still resembles it..
Remember tomorrow,
you said the day before, and today,
with every millisecond slightly enlarged
between the days
remember everything.
Recovered memories climb
between the new ones
I can only see shards
between the now
and what is yet to come -
balanced on the edge of night and dew
belonging in both times,
like you’ve always wanted to.
They don’t talk about words
the way they used to,
nor anything that came with it
‘different’ sounds the same still
or should at least resemble it
“Rather here,” you say day by day,
“instead of the old days
where every word was secretly hidden,
shattered and edgy.”
“Rather this”, you say week by week
and in thought I agree, both of us
touching the edge of night and dew
shaking specks of mist
and letters from our hair
and where the words will fall
we’ll meet again, my dear.
Living like never before,
once again where no one
lived thus far and rather this
with every millisecond slightly enlarged,
and in between these days
I remember moments
looming and priceless, yes
rather this, my love,
and rather here than some place else.
4 comments:
This is really lovely. A fine bit of playing about with time and what we press between the moments that become memories. Of course you know that I'm a sucker for poems about time. LOL
I hope you will take no offense but I played about with it a little. I won't go through and explain the changes because they will either be apparent or not. Feel free to use whatever you like and chuck the rest.
By the way, this did not seem like a translation to me. That would be a compliment. :)
Remember tomorrow,
you said the day before and today
with every millisecond slightly enlarged
between the days
remember everything.
Recovered memories climb
between the new ones.
I can only see shards
between the now
and what is yet to come–
balanced on the edge of night and dew
belonging in both times
as you’ve always wanted.
They don’t talk about words
the way they used to,
nor anything that came with it
‘different’ sounds the same still
or should at least resemble it
“Rather here,” you say day by day,
“instead of the old days
where every word was secretly hidden,
shattered and edgy.”
“Rather this”, you say week by week
and in thought I agree, both of us
touching the edge of night and dew
shaking specks of mist
and letters from our hair
and where the words will fall
we’ll meet again, my dear.
Living like never before,
once again where no one
lived thus far and rather this
with every millisecond slightly enlarged,
and in between these days
I remember moments
looming and priceless, yes
rather this, my love,
and rather here than some place else.
Thank you so much P.B.!
I love all your suggestions, you really gave it the extra touch it needed! I'm always too much in doubt whether to change things around too much in translations, but you've helped me make that click by giving excellent suggestions! Thanks again!
Entirely my pleasure. :)
Thanks for the post!
Josephine:
This is really nice. I wouldn’t have recognized it as a translation either if you hadn’t told me. Beautiful work.
- Steve
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