Wednesday 3 February 2021

Poetry is an act... by Remco Campert

 

Poetry is an act...

Poetry is an act
of endorsement. I endorse
that I live, that I do not just live.

Poetry is a future, thinking
of next week, of another country,
of you when you are old.

Poetry is my breath, moves
my feet, sometimes reluctantly,
over the earth that calls for it.

Voltaire had smallpox, but
cured himself for instance by drinking
120 litres of lemonade: that's poetry.

Or take the surf. Smashed
on the rocks it is not really beaten,
but regains itself and is therefore poetry.

Every word that is written
is an attack on old age.
Death wins in the end, yes of course,

but death is only the silence in the hall
after the last word has sounded.
Death is a poignancy.


Original title: Poëzie is een daad... From: Het huis waarin ik woonde - Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij - Amsterdam - 1955.


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