Many years ago during the Edinburgh Festival I met a Dutch poet, Jos Steegstra. He asked me to work on some translations of his poems with him and we made three or four before he returned to Holland. I later visited him there but we subsequently lost touch with each other. Jos died in 2002 and his widow, Magda, very kindly sent me a handsome little book of his poems which contained one of the translations we made. Here it is, as a small reminder of the delightful man I had the great good fortune to know.

I miss you miles away

Destination
As long as I am en route
I draw nearer to you
as if I already know my destination:
any stop is superfluous.

Road sign
"Ne roule pas trop vite,
je t'aime",
a sign from you
and I know I have to be
on the road for hours.

Roundabout
I do not come nearer to you
but circle round your centre
I hope the signs will indicate
that I'm in the right lane.

Weather report
It has cleared up:
the same ways, the same landscapes,
the same places where we stood.
You are no longer visible on my horizon.

Excursion
I follow the lines on the map
and stop at all the picturesque spots
to keep an eye on what remains
of our past together:
neither castle nor church
has suffered under us.

The end of the road
I miss you miles away;
the distance between us
defines the course
of our separate destinations:
everyone remains
in isolation.

Jos Steegstra