Nij Hiddum & the trade ad infinitum – Nij Hiddum & de hannel ad infinitum

NIJ HIDDUM & THE TRADE AD INFINITUM

On drawing boards the turbines rise, higher
than Babel in the Nij Hiddum sky, playing a trick
on the landscape that is too much for the horizon
– open and wide as the birth of the world – to swallow.

In the polders, sown with meat and feathers,
Cornwerd’s blue dog indulges its desires
like a messenger from Hades’ realm. A keen wind
whistles whosewhosewhose over the bare sea dike.

O, manna, manna, go to hell, Salverda cries,
I saw the sun, a bloodbird in a throbbing sky
full of slashing blades. What a racket! Don’t tell me
the money here is not as black as crows over

the fields or the souls of the grand windfarmers.
See them hoofing it over the dike, pointing at their
wind business ad infinitum with their golf clubs.
Listen, who’s that singing The Wind Cries Mary?

Later by the Kornwerdervaart I beheld the land,
a dream, flowering like once the gardens
of Babylon. The age-old channels reflecting
the dance of a small nineteenth-century post mill.

Will the wind turbines that tower over the land
one day be as magnificent as Monet’s mills,
painted near Zaandam? A keen wind whistles
whosewhosewhose over the bare sea dike.

©Eeltsje Hettinga / Translation: David Colmer

.

 

NIJ HIDDUM & DE HANNEL AD INFINITUM

Op tekentafels klimme turbines, heger as Babel,
de Nij Hiddumer himel yn. Hjir wurdt it lânskip
in streek levere dêr’t de hoarizon – iepen en breed
as it begjin fan de weareld – net fan werom hat.

Yn ’e finne, mei fearren en fleis besiedde, wierret
de blauwe hûn fan Koarnwert syn begearten út
as wie er de boade fan Hades’ ryk. Straf fluitet
de wyn wiewinterwiewinter oer de lege seedyk.

O, manna, manna, stik de moard, ropt Salverda,
ik seach de sinne, in bloedfûgel yn in gûnzjende
romte fol gehakmoles. Wat in leven! Sis my net
dat it jild hjir net like swart is as de krieën oer

it fjild of as de siele fan de hearen wynboeren.
Sjoch, hoe’t se op de dyk omtoere, wizend mei
golfstokken op harren wynhannel ad infinitum.
St.. hear, wa sjongt dêr The Wind Cries Mary?

Letter by de Koarnwerter Feart skôge ik it lân,
in dream, bloeiend as ienris Babylon’s skean
oerhingjende tunen. De slinken fan iuwen
spegelen in lytse, 19de-iuwske spinnekopdame.

Drage de heech yn it lân oprizende wynturbines
op in dei net inselde skjintme as de mûnen fan
Monet, op doek set by Zaandam? Straf fluitet
de wyn wiewinterwiewinter oer de lege seedyk.
.

@Eeltsje Hettinga – www.dichterfanfryslan.nl