Heavenly Peace by Ira Bart

Heavenly Peace

                            

                                        for Duo Duo

Ira Bart (Ria Baart)
[1947-1996]

You were on the Tiananmen Square

when a new wind was starting to blow there

full of spring air and cherry blossom, the future

crushed under the wheels of tanks

                       - colics, hard corses of a lava flow -

did you run, no, but did I run

over my screen.

I recognised you later in my country

by a photo in the newspaper.

Driven by hate and homesickness you watched

in my house pictures of the whitewashed square where

what had happened was no longer shown.

               People who haves eyes are often sad, you said,

swimming in the sea, where your head

became a smaller and smaller dot

until I could only somehow

                                          vaguely

                                                        surmise it.

Men in a boat showed you the way

back. Why, you asked, denying the supremacy

of the sees, surely rinsing off something

               must be done with a great deal of water?

Original title: Hemelse Vrede - From the collection: Verwaaide liefdes, tere vleugels - 1997 - Uitgeverij Tortuca, Rotterdam