De Ierse dichter Michael Longley werd geboren op 27 juli 1939 in Belfast. De dichter overleed op 22 januari jongstleden op 85-jarige leeftijd. Zie ook alle tags voor Michael Longley op dit blog.

 

 

Christopher At Birth

Your uncle, totem and curator bends
Above your cot. It is you I want to see.
Your cry comes out like an eleison.
Only the name tag round your wrist extends
My surprised compassion to loyalty.
Your mother tells me you are my godson.
You would know
The previous room still moulds your shape
Which lies unwashed, out of its element,
Smelling like rain on soil. I stoop to lift
You out of bed and into my landscape,
Last arrival, obvious immigrant
Wearing the fashions of the place you left.
As winds are balanced in a swaying tree
I cradle your cries. And in my arms reside,
Till you fall asleep, your uncontended
Demands that the world be your nursery.
And I, a spokesman of that world outside,
Creation’s sponsor, stand dumbfounded,
Although there is such a story to unfold
– Whether as forecast or reminder –
Of cattle steaming in their byres, and sheep
Beneath a hedge, arranged against the cold,
Our cat at home blinking by the fender,
The wolf treading its circuits towards sleep.

 

 

An Amish Rug

As if a one-room schoolhouse were all we knew
And our clothes were black, our underclothes black,
Marriage a horse and buggy going to church
And the children silhouettes in a snowy field,
I bring you this patchwork like a smallholding
Where I served as the hired boy behind the harrow,
Its threads the colour of cantaloupe and cherry
Securing hay bales, corn cobs, tobacco leaves.
You may hang it on the wall, a cathedral window,
Or lay it out on the floor beside our bed
So that whenever we undress for sleep or love
We shall step over it as over a flowerbed.

 

 

War & Peace

Achilles hunts down Hector like a sparrowhawk
Screeching after a horror-struck collared-dove
That flails just in front of her executioner, so
Hector strains under the walls ofTroy to stay alive.
Past the windbent wild fig tree and the lookout
Post they both accelerate away from the town
Along a cart-track as far as double well-heads
That gush into the eddying Scamander, in one
Warm water steaming like smoke from a bonfire,
The other running cold as hailstones, snow water,
Handy for the laundry-cisterns carved out of stone
Where Trojan housewives and their pretty daughters
Used to rinse glistening clothes in the good old days,
On washdays before the Greek soldiers came to Troy.

 

 

HET PATROON

Op de kop af zesendertig jaar na ons trouwen,
toen er een koude, figuur-onthullende wind tegen je aan woei
en je sluier oplichtte, vind ik in zijn dikke envelop
het Vogue-patroon van zes shilling van je bruidsjapon,
gecompliceerde handleiding voor het naaien van lijfje
en rok, dubbele plooien en zomen, vloeipapieren knippatronen,
Gelijkenissen van huid die ik zenuwachtig openvouw
en in sneeuwlicht omhooghoud, want het heeft gesneeuwd
op deze windstille dag, en ik zie een glimp van je bruidsjurk
en witte schoenen buiten in de getransformeerde tuin
waar de waslijn en alle twijgen bedekt zijn.

 

Vertaald door Ko Kooman

 

 

Michael Longley (27 juli 1939 – 22 januari 2025)

 

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 27^e juli ook mijn blog van 27 juli 2020 en eveneens mijn blog van 27 juli 2018 en ook mijn blog van 27 juli 2017 en ook mijn blog van 27 juli 2011 deel 2.