IT WAS A YEAR OF SAYING GOODBYE…

 

 

to Saviana S.

 

 

Far behind us lie the facts, the promises, the autumn colours.

Today a morning scent of wet branches

and wet leaves hangs here,

steam rising from the meadows and the asphalt

between the imitation farms

erected in this domain.

Something from here evokes

something from over there.

Petrila, Petrosani, Lupeni, the villages I came to

after we had said goodbye.

It was a year of saying goodbye.

I have remembered what took place.

We looked down from the hotel room

onto the roofs of the town –

skylights like eyes

that had spied on us all night.

I stood beside you at the window,

saw your lips move, but did not hear you.

I had submerged,

breathed, but cared about nothing.

Was it whisky or ‘the ennui of fright’,

as a drunken poet once called it?

What lies behind us, pursues us,

Saviana. Or do I say, Vava?

Do you have a preference for the pet name

I have borrowed from your young cousin?

Do you still recall the smell of fresh-baked bread

that wafted towards us that night in the street?

The baker greeted us, white as a ghost.

You could be take fright like no one else could.

You could not get used to the sound of the sticks

used by the waiters to drive off

the gypsy children from the restaurant.

You hated the whooping of the screwing

on the other side of the curtain

that separated your bed from that of the couple

you rented the room from.

We had much to tell each other, many tales

without prospect. Other people

could have eluded us, others

could have been together.

Vava, I ought to have answered that last letter.

How is your hand doing?

What has happened?

Have you forgotten me?

The day progresses minute by minute. Cumulus clouds drift past.

It is late afternoon and the rain

comes intermittently. Brich leaves quiver in the wind

in the back garden. I listen to the cello concerto

in B minor, opus 104, by Dvorak

and go on wrestling with your questions.

 

 

· Naar introductiepagina

· Bloemlezing eigen  poëzie

· Vertalingen eigen  poëzie

· Vertalingen

· Essays

· Toneel

Joris Iven