(at St. Mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

From Quilting: Poems 1987–1990 by Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 2001 by Lucille Clifton

Maria Popova vertrok van de eerste regel om zelf een gedicht te schrijven dat in niets moet onderdoen. Ik las haar prachtige gedicht op het sublieme The marginalian, het levenswerk van Maria Popova, waar je ook Nick Cave dit gedicht kan horen voorlezen.

Forgiveness

May the tide
never tire of its tender toil
how over and over
it forgives the Moon
the daily exile
and returns to turn
mountains into sand
as if to say,
you too can have
this homecoming
you too possess
this elemental power
of turning
the stone in the heart
into golden dust.

by Maria Popova

Overal is water en alles zingt, wolken

bewegen in de diepte van plassen

op straten die de wolken niet kennen

en de hemel heeft geen weet van de aarde

vingertoppen van bomen, die van gevoel

dat sterft in de herfst en er nu nog is

zijn klankkastjes voor al die vingers van regen

overal schuilen mensen en iemand

loopt door tijd die al bijna verdwenen is

koud watergetokkel op het gezicht

en weet; de wolken weten niet van de regen

het water weet niet van de bladeren

waaruit het de muziek slaat, ritmes, taal

en de snelle zilveren aanrakingen

die leven heten en beweging

kennen de druppels op mijn gezicht niet

en straks ben ik dit alles allemaal.

Esther Jansma (1958-2025)

Uit: We moeten ‘misschien’ blijven denken, Prometheus, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, 2024

I am bound to praise the simple life, because I have lived it and found it good. When I depart from it evil results follow. I love a small house, plain clothes, simple living. Many persons know the luxury of a skin bath — a plunge in the pool or the wave unhampered by clothing. That is the simple life — direct and immediate contact with things, life with the false wrappings torn away — the fine house, the fine equipage, the expensive habits, all cut off. How free one feels, how good the elements taste, how close one gets to know them, how they fit one’s body and one’s soul! To see the fire that warms you, or better yet, to cut the wood that feeds the fire that warms you; to see the spring where the water bubbles up that slakes your thirst, and to dip your pail into it; to see the beams that are the stay of your four walls, and the timbers that uphold the roof that shelters you; to be in direct and personal contact with the sources of your material life; to want no extras, no shields; to find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk, or an evening saunter; to find a quest of wild berries more satisfying than a gift of tropic fruit; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest, or over a wild flower in spring — these are some of the rewards of the simple life.

by John Burroughs

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry

Het is onzin
zegt het verstand
Het is wat het is
zegt de liefde

Het is ongeluk
zegt de berekening
Het is alleen maar verdriet
zegt de angst
Het is uitzichtloos
zegt het inzicht
Het is wat het is
zegt de liefde

Het is belachelijk
zegt de trots
Het is lichtzinnigheid
zegt de voorzichtigheid
Het is onmogelijk
zegt de ervaring
Het is wat het is
zegt de liefde

Erich Fried
Vertaling: Remco Campert

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth.

And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

-William Shakespeare-

Come not with kisses
not with caresses
of hands and lips and murmurings;
come with a hiss of wings
and sea-touch tip of a beak
and treading of wet, webbed, wave-working feet
into the marsh-soft belly.

– D.H. Lawrence –

You come from far away

With pictures in your eyes

Of coffeeshops and morning streets

In the blue and silent sunrise

But night is the cathedral

Where we recognized the sign

We strangers know each other now

As part of the whole design

Oh, hold me like a baby

That will not fall asleep

Curl me up inside you

And let me hear you through the heat

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

You’re the jester of this courtyard

With a smile like a girl’s

Distracted by the women

With the dimples and the curls

By the pretty and the mischievous

By the timid and the blessed

By the blowing skirts of ladies

Who promise to gather you to their breast

Oh, hold me like a baby

That will not fall asleep

Curl me up inside you

And let me hear you through the heat

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

You have hands of raining water

And that earring in your ear

The wisdom on your face denies the number of your years

With the fingers of the potter

And the laughing tale of the fool

The arranger of disorder

With your strange and simple rules

Yeah, now I’ve met me another spinner

Of strange and gauzy threads

With a long and slender body

And a bump upon the head

Oh, hold me like a baby

That will not fall asleep

Curl me up inside you

And let me hear you through the heat

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

With a long and slender body

And the sweetest softest hands

And we’ll blow away forever soon

And go on to different lands

And please do not ever look for me

But with me you will stay

And you will hear yourself in song

Blowing by one day

But, now, hold me like a baby

That will not fall asleep

Curl me up inside you

And let me hear you through the heat

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

– Suzanne Vega –

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

– Czesław Miłosz –

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

– Derek Walcott –