A poem from the Frisian

REPLY

by Geart Van Der Zwaag translated by R. Jellema

I think, Tamme,
if an angel meets us
and has something to say,
he'll say it in English and be amazed

if we don't understand him.
“Didn't you know?” he'll say,
“Didn't you know that with my language
you could go farthest and escape

everything that's small and petty,
you could understand mankind and folks
to discover that the negro is more
than his color, the Frisian more than his tongue?”

Come, late pupil,
let us learn some English
and conjugate the irregular verb
to be.