La gare
forestière
(Paul Delvaux)
The wood smells pause.
Between the leaves
darkness keeps asleep.
The sky
fills with light yellow
defence.
On the rural platform
the waiting
has started. The
destinations do not run out
for the girls who made
up all the arrivals.
The rails are carrying
like parallel running
servants their
ponderous masters.
For everybody waiting
they bring an absentee.
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For
Gert B.
It is Easter Monday.
The magnolia flowers.
The garden wall seems
to glow gently.
Just for a moment I
sense the winter
when I take the garden
chairs out of the cellar.
What is in the bud,
wants to open
before nightfall. As in
a race
green holds the first
place.
Nothing is hesitating.
The exception is my
hand that touches the tree-bark.
The branch that it
breaks, contains no sap.
It is clear: the pear
tree is dead
and from what I have
heard this morning, so are you.
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The
synagogue on the Koornmarkt
I
have come to Delft, not for its blue
or
its tower. Because only what was lost,
has
the right of existence.
Ornament
that lives in a pencil sketch.
Light
spots on the eastern wall.
Tolerance
made evident from a speech
Much
was devoted to what had disappeared. A collection.
The
words of a poet from The Hague. Lotteries
and
the whole life of an unmarried engineer.
The
specification provided room for eighty Jews.
In
fear they threw themselves down.
The
occupiers registered
a
hundred and thirty eight.
Twelve
returned.
Oh
Eternal one, I love the throne of Your house that
turned
into a storage place for rusting barrels.
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Original titles: La gare forestière, Voor Gerd B. and De synagoge aan de Koornmarkt - From: De tweede ronde, Tijdschrift voor literatuur, Herfst 1989 - Vlaams nummer - Uitgeverij Bert Bakker BV, Amsterdam.
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