Snow
The world is frosted
into paper darkness.
*
Banishment
How beautiful was your name
when we no longer knew what to make of it.
You disappeared into the mass of your rebellious body
Like the chiselled, a long lost
weight upon itself, sunlight.
How lithely
light probes itself.
You are the yield of a flower.
The enumerated light of your name.
Martijn Benders – both poems from: What do I buy for your darkwilde powers, Willem, Loewak Publishers, 2011.
The first poem was originally longer, but it didn’t work well in that form. I later shortened it to the shortest poem in my collection that I believe works well in its current form. The second poem was challenging to translate, but I think I was successful in preserving its meaning. Some subtleties were lost, but others were gained. It now appears to be a proper poem in English.
