By Thomas Page
The Untranslatable
This is a series of poems of words that do not directly translate into English. I have tried to capture the essence of the word in a poem.
At my high school, the seniors would on the last day sign each other’s shirts.
The last period in the orange, zigzag-y room covered in the cultures studied
Armed with markers and pens spent the last hours of seniority
Tattooing each other with promises of friendship and goodbyes
That this wasn’t the end of us
To label each other as the friend of the other
For as long as we kept our shirts.
Years later,
At the New Years party
I saw them again
The conversation resumed as if it had been seconds later.
Language: Dutch
Academy of the Heart And Mind 