Kleur kom nooit alleen nie

Kort op die hake van gister se gesprek oor die meditatio oor Hot Gates, word ek toe gevra om ’n gedig van Antjie Krog, uit Kleur kom nooit alleen nie, te vertaal. Die keer vir ’n meditatio in ’n plaaslike (Engelse) kerk.

Wat ek toe doen.

Ek plaas dit, want dit was vir my interessant om Antjie se woorde te weeg, te voel, te proe en te vertaal.

i will come and fetch you from between the bones and bullets and violence and aids from the numbness and the dumbness of men’s corrupt faces rapture you from between the millions of refugees from hunger from thirst from the camps from the cries from the stench of tolerated sorrow the desperate jumble of dreams from behind i will recognise the brave stalk of your neck overtake you and hoist you up with my arm for you have to see it differently we of the abyss have to see everybody differently see the continent drifting like a huge black heart across the globe landmass that is us continent pulsating of blood in the ventricles of desert forest savannah and stone lost continent upon which so many commit acts of make-believe trust huge aggressive heart upon which thousands die without a sound ending up in heaps of weathered bone i would that it be you my little one that between your ribs a quiver of difference you would feel that something would be true that we’d be us that it which is in us Africans be so humane so constitutional so massively big as to surpass the strange consciousness we are who we are because we are of each other how then do we remain so wrong? i lay my cheek against yours i want to blow into you care care sh sh

Die gedig is die derde in ’n vierluik. Die vierde eindig so:

my vinger raak aan jou handjie wat dadelik opglip en my vashou styf jou ma roer lief ding ek het net kom dag sê en welkom en dat iets in my met jou saamgaan en dat jy daarvan nie hoef te weet nie

Dít sluit mooi aan by my blog oor die gesprek tussen ma’s en dogters.

Ek hoop julle is nou al nuuskierig oor die oorspronklike. Koop dan die bundel en lees dit.