Terra Salsa: september 2013

Across the Fields and Other Poems

Poetry

By Hans van de Waarsenburg

THE PRAGUE REVUE

02.09.2013

Hans van de Waarsenburg is an award-winning poet from the Netherlands. Here, in Peter Boreas' translation from the Dutch, are poems from 'The Past is Never Dead'(Eyewear Publishing, London, 2013) reprinted with the poet's permission. The following selection is comprised of a kind of archipelago of island lyrics on the experience of the poet's trip to Ireland. The first of which is 'Across the Fields', a poignant and elegiac meditation dedicated to the late Seamus Heaney. Enjoy.

Poetry
By Hans van de Waarsenburg

ACROSS THE FIELDS

For Seamus Heaney

Across the fields, well past the midst

Of life, the shadows of the paths.

The changing of the harsh afternoon light.

A feather in his throat and watching

Things tumbling slowly. Across the fields

The word strides, so slowly that sound

Loses itself, dissolves in the mist over the

Stubble fields. And the walker? He

Peers across the fields at the fading

Horizon. Tries to step out of his

Shadow, while dusk falls around

His head. The dead rustle among

The autumn leaves or rest on the branches

Of the past. If there should be a farewell,

Let it wait and bring a little ‘wood

To the forest and peat to the moors’.

GALWAY

We smelled the smoke in the pubs, gazed

At the peat fires, as if everything would

Last and nothing had changed. Words

Unspoken, suppressed, left in the dunes,

On beaches. Perhaps, you said,

There are journeys one goes alone, if we

Lived without time or need. But wherever

The roads went, ships arrived and I

Looked for your face in every port.

Horizons are but a perspective, ever in

A different light. You voice is parched, you said.

Come here and put your lips to glass or verse.

ARAN ISLANDS

The ferry to the islands cleft the waves.

The holy water swept in from the Atlantic

Across the edges of the bay. A gale

Intertwined our hair and grains of salt

Filled the lines of years. A hand

Covered a hand. Stacks of peat rose

In our heads. Like a pig being

Stuck or crumbling black pudding on

Our plates, steaming amidst apples and

Autumn. But isn’t it spring, you said and

Hummed an old tune in my ear. We stared

At the proud waters of the luminescent sea.

Sailor’s legs felt for the quay. A

Lame duck waddled from the ship. A near-

Dead man was lying on the quay. Drunk, dropped

Out of his frame, tongue still grey with whiskey,

Erosion of Jameson on the lips. Today this is

Our island, you said and pulled me away from

Him. Salt rain corroded the houses. There

Were no trees to carve one’s name in.

Grey the skies, grey the water. No hangover

Lurking here. We gazed across the forgotten

Islands, where stone rules over the dead

Unintelligibly, and the day contracted.

Shivering we covered ourselves in blankets.

The horse’s hoofs clacked steadily,

As if the roads were soft paths, every

Step reversible. Seals were swimming

Towards the horizon. Potatoes lay like

Eggs in the scanty peat. On your lips

I tasted the salt that encrusts stone,

And then you looked at me, looked back

Through my eyes. This is the end of a world,

You said, where old can never age. Where

Time is silence in an urn filled with ashes. Aran,

Dream with the smell of horse blankets.

Hans van de Waarsenburg (Helmond 1943) published his first collection of poems, entitled Gedichten (Poems), in 1965. His collection De vergrijzing (The graying) was awarded the prestigious Jan Campert Prize for Poetry in 1973. In March 2004 he received the first Municipal Award of the Helmond Town Council for his entire work.Between 1997 and 2000 he was chairman of the PEN Centre of the Netherlands. He was the founder of The Maastricht International Poetry Nights – a big biannual international poetry manifestation- and President of it from 1997 - 2013.

The above work is from a collection entitled The Past Is Never Dead and was reprinted with permission from Eyewear Publishing.