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All Flesh is Glass
I
sought to divert the light with some clubs. sought
what aches to the bone. sought – suddenly, here,
the breathtaking void no longer gave way.
here lie the breached heavens. here a statue lets
go of its shape and recedes with a breathless
shadow to the edge of air and water, where the wait is.
for light is water. for air is a rock of crystal
transparent sea. for this is where he bathes, the unmoved.
the bottle I take by the neck I shatter on a gate.
fleeing wailing through the shed glass
once again
the glazier draws a void from his breath-cloud-sea
II
there’s a sea on sea, on the mudflat sea there’s a sea
more than one man looks with a hammer into those who reflect him –
shaving mirror, rain puddle, shop window, light shaft, breath cloud
in a man completely made of glass
seas of sea stood there
(vertaling Willem Groenewegen)
veere
from home, the evening lighter on the creek than
— behind the reeds, where twilight
in the meadows rises till it rolls
across the settled dykes, and across the fields
of rye, ears dying one by one,
fields with pale blue flowers, ripening poppy seed,
the weedgrown meadows over up against
the sea wall and the dunes, beyond —
on the sea, in the bar that the creek reflects
had there been something, there would be nothing now
the sea, taut between English ebb
and this high flood, does not disturb the calm,
the faint flow in the creek
troubles the water’s surface
and the air above it not at all.
the twilight is a lock,
between, blue-black, the sky’s sweet channel
and, below, the race of heavier, brackish light,
clear now in the darker morning, home
from: grondzee Middelburg
2000.
translation: H. Lammers
veere
sorti, le soir plus clair sur la crique que
– derrière les roseaux, d’où le crépuscule
monte dans les prés jusqu’à se
dérouler sur les digues tassées, sur les terres
aux épis de seigle irrégulièrement mourants
les champs de fleurs bleu détrempé, pavot qui mûrit,
sur les prés tombant en friche puis s’arrêtant
au brise-lames et au bord des dunes, là-derrière –
au-dessus de la mer, dans la bande que reflète la crique
y eût-il eu quelque chose, il n’y aurait plus rien à présent
étirée entre reflux anglais et ce flux-ci
la mer ne brise pas le calme plat,
le courant faible dans la crique
n’effleure ni la surface de l’eau
ni le ciel qui la couvre.
une chambre d’écluse est le crépuscule,
entre, bleu noir, le doux chenal du ciel
et, dessous, l’écoulement plus lourd, lumière saline,
ce qui parut dans ce matin plus sombre, rentré.
translation: Kim Andringa
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