‘First Night Frost’ is the latest poem by Arjan Hut as Dichter fan Fryslân (Poet of Friesland). It can also be read today in the Friesch Dagblad, the Leeuwarder Courant, and on the Omrop Fryslân website.
The Poet of Fryslân, Arjan Hut: “Only a very thin layer of atmosphere, on a small planet in the endlessness, is fit for us to live in. But here too, things are cruel.” Read the English translation by David Colmer:
First Night Frost
as light as snow the wind
blows over the long narrow backyard
the thinnest film of ice
in the bucket of rainwater
next to the shed door
a mouse is floating in the water
its head protruding through the ice
is there a god that believes in mice
loves them and protects them?
we send mice into space
this one is looking up through open eyes
pinpricks of night
I empty the bucket
under the butterfly bush
just before the door bangs shut
the black cat slips out
Translation: David Colmer
