Paul Lynch, Charles Simic
De Ierse schrijver Paul Lynch werd geboren op 9 mei 1977 in Limerick in het zuidwesten van Ierland. Zie ook alle tags voor Paul Lynch op dit blog.
Uit: Red Sky in Morning
“NIGHT SKY WAS BLACK and then there was blood, morning crack of light on the edge of the earth. The crimson spill sent the bright stars to fade, hills step-ping out of shadow and clouds finding flesh. First rain of day from a soundless sky and music it made of the land. The trees let slip the mantle of darkness, stretched themselves, fingers of leaves shivering in the breeze, red then goldening rays of light catching. The rain stopped and he heard the birds wake. They blinked and shook their heads and scattered song upon the sky. The land, old and tremulous, turned slowly towards the rising sun.
Coll Coyle was tight with rage and could not admit he was afraid. For hours he watched with dread the creeping birth of morning. Wobbled glass bending the Carnarvan dawn in rivulets of shifting purple, the slow retreat of numb shadow from the walls. He could not speak for a great bank of sorrow.
He lay awake most of the night, dreams snaking shallow and tormented so that for a moment he would find relief in waking, but soon the dread would pool about him in the darkness and a weight spreading heavy would pitch on top of him. He turned among the limb-sprawl of heated bodies, his daughter snug in his elbow and the press of his wife’s chest. He reached a hand to her swollen belly and listened to the suck tide of her breathing. The surf at Clochan Strand.
He rose so as not to stir them, slithered and then scooped his daughter with feathered fingers and placed her by her mother’s arms. The child awoke anyway, blinked at him with eyes confused and crusted, and he cooed her and rubbed his thumb on her cheek and the lids of her eyes weighted and shut. He looked to the darkness that held silent the shape of his mother sleeping. The hearth glowing red with sleepy eyes and he reached for his breeches and put them on and took his wyliecoat off the chair, sleeved it and buttoned it and set towards the door leaving his boots by the bed. The door sounding a gentle keening and he put it back on the latch and stood outside. The smell of Carnarvan like soaking earth. Salt faintly on the air and he sucked it in, looked towards the light that flaked silver on the dark waters of Trawbega Bay.
He stamped his feet and walked about the yard and opened the door to the stone outhouse, letting out the pig with a kick. Go on ye. The cow staring at him thickly. He yawned and rubbed his eyes and sat on the stone wall and ran his fingers over the rocks that sat jagged as if they had fought violently before being ripped out of the earth. The lime white of the house indigo in the light and he saw himself as a child among gragging geese and his father plastering dripping upon the blue clay.”
Paul Lynch (Limerick, 9 mei 1977)
De Amerikaanse dichter Charles Simic werd geboren in Belgrado op 9 mei 1938. Zie ook alle tags voor Charles Simic op dit blog.
Lied
in haar weduwentasje
bewaart mijn moeder
een gedachte
zwaarder dan zijzelf
wanneer niemand kijkt
haalt ze hem eruit
en kauwt erop
als op een kort droog brood
wanneer niemand kijkt
spuugt ze de botjes en kooltjes
op een hoopje
en stopt ons dan allemaal in
alleen dit vertrouwde gewicht
wiegt ons in slaap
alleen dit moederlijk duister
zal onze dromen verlichten
Vertaald door Wiljan van den Akker
Charles Simic (Belgrado, 9 mei 1938)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 9e mei ook mijn blog van 9 mei 2022 en ook mijn blog van 9 mei 2020 en eveneens mijn blog van 9 mei 2019 en ook mijn blog van 9 mei 2018 en ook mijn blog van 9 mei 2015 deel 2.
