Poems
Translated by Benno Barnard
You step into the wind
folding back its corners
smoothing out a sheet
a woman wanderer’s heartbeat
a hospital
a gap in the wall
where a bird flutters
fallen flat on its back—
while the sky drifts ever further away
as it always has
boundless shape—
and the wind suffocates
trapped between these walls
fallen, can’t escape
*
Don’t turn your gaze away—
snow, snow has cloaked the forest,
the earth, the wings of all
the branches in white moss:
the bowstring of the sky
is taut above, striking
your eyes with radiant blue
tenderer than tenderness.
Don’t close your eyes when woods
of snow rush in the coach’s
window toward your eyes:
a precipice, a field,
flinging its arms wide open,
drawing your gaze toward
the edge, the very edge
of home, and then the sea.
Don’t hide your gaze: look winter,
look sorrow in the eye,
your sorrow shouldn’t be
invisible. So don’t contend
with winter or with fate
dear one who suffers pain,
but look upon the snow
during this painful time.
*
Thank you, depths of the seabed,
measured words of the waves:
transparent is my soul
and sunny is the catch
of stones that grow conversely,
compared to earthly life,
observing from the sand
how I, a human, sing,
and how a moth
alights upon my palm;
and how the water squints,
and runs between the lines.
And near draws the horizon
and wide stretches the shoreline
and the autumnal human
has met herself, himself.
*
and soon we will say
that was so long ago
but back then we did not see the end
we stood on a path by the bay
above it a pine tree, arched like a sail
we saw how it was reflected
in the water, flecked with the rays of the day
and a dragonfly grows motionless on a blade of grass
and a fisherman grows motionless on a boulder
and, playfully, beside the float
a brazen little perch pops up, a word
and everything, everything grows motionless again
and only time’s faint chuckle can be heard
*
The houses squint in the sunlight
the wind pulls the strings
swallows weave nests in the heavens
snails wiggle slowly their feelers
bumblebees buzz in full armour, no chinks
and the linden tree scatters its gold
drifting sleepily out of bloom
exhaling something deep and like honey
In the square children go racing by
on their scooters and freedom is what they learn
their wishes will come true, every dream
and of course we will never return:
we’ll build a house in the depth of the woods
feed the snails with fresh morsels
and when we lose a few marbles
catch angels in the stream
*
and I keep washing and ironing
cooking and cleaning
and I watch how the branches reach out
how the trees glow in May
how the butterflies with one another—
how the girls in sheer tights
and the boys on their skateboards
hurry along
and I keep cooking and washing
watching what’s stirred by the sun
dishevelled and restless
lost and regained
blossoming in the eternal nearness of death
with all its stamens
with all its grains of sand
and blood samples
and birch sap—
when will it be tapped again
and what’s the weather like today
Shall we go?
Benno Barnard (Amsterdam, November 21, 1954) is a Dutch poet, prose writer, and translator. he studied English in Plymouth, followed by theology and philosophy in Brussels.