Just listen carefully by C. Buddingh'

Just listen carefully

Painting by Toon Winkler (1923-1989)

I often listen to my breathing.
Something is always wheezing or grinding or rattling:
muffled signals from my bronchi
that there all is still functioning reasonably.

One can hear too much, but also too little.
Too much: the doctor comes with a syringe.
Nothing at all: one is on one's death bed.
No, the best is somewhere in between.

Those long familiar, rustling sounds:
like a mouse gnawing on a rind of cheese,
like a ripple through coal dust.

Especially at night: the whole neighbourhood sleeps,
one reads and listens, smiles, reads and listens,
and alive enough one looks ahead with a grin.

Original title: ''Goed luisteren maar''  From the collection Gedichten 1974/1985, Uitgeverij de Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, 1986

This island by Jan Eijkelboom

 This island

Today my feet are feeling good
in their socks and they in turn
in their roomy but not yet
sloppy shoes.

Then why not take the beaten track,
up the mountains, over the fields
away from this town
where alleys go down to landings

no longer used by boats.

Yet there, one can look out
over the ever-changing
but staying the same water,

experience that between closeness
and thirst for space can be
a marked out though unrestrained domain:
this, to do in one day's march

island.

Original title: Dit eiland From: Heden voelen mijn voeten zich goed - Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers - Amsterdam - Antwerpen - 2002.