Fairly peaceful at sea by L. Th. Lehmann

 

Fairly peaceful at sea                                                                

L.Th. Lehmann [1920-2012]

Blood-salty sea, which they call Mother,

mother without arms to catch,

without legs to chase,

without a throat to scream,

without hands to grab us,

without teeth to crush us.

The sea does nothing like mothers do,

but those waves are mouths too

and certainly she can swallow us up,

but often enough she can't be bothered.

(Original title: 'Redelijke zeevrede' - from: 'Gedichten 1939-1998', 2000 - Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam)

To Dublin by K. Schippers

                                                                                                                                                                                         

To Dublin                                                                             

K. Schippers (Gerard Stigter)
1936 - 2021

for Philip Mechanicus

I flew once from Amsterdam to Dublin.

Later I wrote:

Above the North Sea and the English coast

I looked down

and I saw the map from the Bos Atlas:

the word North Sea

printed a little skewed in the water

and the names of the coastal cities

also in the sea

because on the land

there was no room anymore.

If I go again

then I might write:

Above the North Sea and the English coast

looking down,

saw the sea and the English coast.

Or:

The sky was like the colour of my socks,

but I couldn't see

whether it was ebb or flow.

Reality does not suffer

among those observations.

They are only

different points of view.

(Original title: 'Naar Dublin' - from: Poëzie is een daad van bevestiging - Noord- en Zuidnederlandse poëzie van 1945 tot heden - gebundeld en ingeleid door C. Buddingh' en Eddy van Vliet - 1984 - Uitgeverij Manteau, Amsterdam.