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Dolce far niente
De Oversteek, Nijmegen
Oversteken
Opnieuw heerste in de uiterwaard het rusteloze
van stervelingen
maar ze droegen andere helmen, blauwe en gele
hoog op het hoofd als uitgelaten petten.
We trachtten de verre bewegingen te doorgronden
verzochten de rivier dringend zich te gedragen en
keer op keer dachten we terug aan de geniesoldaat
hoe hij een canvas boot over het blote water joeg
die woensdag om vijftien uur in '44.
Achteraf kunnen we hem en zijn kameraden
minuten stilte geven, maar nooit meer
de beloofde nacht, het tamelijk veilig duister.
De boog is gehesen, de koelte van beton bewaakt.
We zagen ginds het roerloze van pijlers groeien
beschouwden lang genoeg de overkant als overkant.
Er ligt een brug die het voorbijgaan draagt.
Marijke Hanegraaf (Tilburg, 6 maart 1946)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Richard Preston werd geboren op 5 augustus 1954 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Richard Preston op dit blog.
Uit: The Wild Trees
“Steve Sillett had feathery light-brown hair, which hung out from under a sky-blue bandanna that he wore tied around his head like a cap. He had flaring shoulders, and his eyes were dark brown and watchful, and were set deep in a square face. The Sillett brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at the birds. Their bodies were outlined against decks of autumn rollers coming in, giving off a continual roar. Scott handed the binoculars to his younger brother, and their hands touched for an instant. The Sillett brothers' hands had the same appearance-fine and sensitive-looking, with deft movements.
Scott turned to Marwood: "Marty, I think your car should be called the Blue Vinyl Crypt. That's what it will turn into if we fall off a cliff or get swiped by a logging truck."
"Dude, you're going to get us into a crash that will be biblical in its horror," Steve said to Marwood. "You need to let Scott drive." (Steve didn't know how to drive a car.)
Marwood didn't want Scott's help with the driving. "It's a very idiosyncratic car," he explained to the Sillett brothers. In theory, he fixed his car himself. In practice, he worried about it. Lately he had noticed that the engine had begun to give off a clattering sound, like a sewing machine. He had also become aware of an ominous smell coming from under the hood, something that resembled the smell of an empty iron skillet left forgotten on a hot stove. As Marwood contemplated these phenomena and pondered their significance, he wondered if his car needed an oil change. He was pretty sure that the oil had been changed about two years ago, in Alaska, around the time the license plates had expired. The car had been driven twenty thousand miles since then, unregistered, uninsured, and unmaintained, strictly off the legal and mechanical grids. "I'm worried you'll screw it up," he said to Scott.»
Richard Preston (Cambridge, 5 augustus 1954)
De Amerikaanse schrijver en dichter Conrad Potter Aiken werd geboren in Savannah, Georgia op 5 augustus 1889. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Conrad Aitken op dit blog.
Nocturne Of Remembered Spring
1
Moonlight silvers the tops of trees,
Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall
And through the evening fall,
Clearly, as if through enchanted seas,
Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away,
In another world and another day.
Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue,
Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old,
And the boughs of elms grow green and cold,
Our footsteps echo on gleaming stones,
The leaves are stirred to a jargon of muted tones.
This is the night we have kept, you say:
This is the moonlit night that will never die.
Through the grey streets our memories retain
Let us go back again.
2.
Mist goes up from the river to dim the stars,
The river is black and cold; so let us dance
To flare of horns, and clang of cymbals and drums;
And strew the glimmering floor with roses,
And remember, while the rich music yawns and closes,
With a luxury of pain, how silence comes.
Yes, we loved each other, long ago;
We moved like wind to a music's ebb and flow.
At a phrase from violins you closed your eyes,
And smiled, and let me lead you how young we were!
Your hair, upon that music, seemed to stir.
Let us return there, let us return, you and I;
Through changeless streets our memories retain
Let us go back again.
Conrad Aiken (5 augustus 1889 – 17 augustus 1973)
De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver, essayist en criticus Wendell Berry werd geboren op 5 augustus 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Wendell Berry op dit blog.
The Country Of Marriage
1.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
2.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth's empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.
3.
Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.
Wendell Berry (Henry County, 5 augustus 1934)
Onafhankelijk van geboortdata
De Nederlandse dichter René Puthaar werd geboren in Deventer in 1964. Zie ook alle tags voor René Puthaar op dit blog.
De verloren gewaande neef uit Nieuw-Guinea
Niet omdat hij stonk en van de buidelwolf
het spitse had, het felle en het uitsterven:
na zoveel waarheid was hij wildgroei, schadelijk.
Een schemering als in dat late strijkkwintet
dat, zo had iemand verzucht, de zomer uitgleed
en haar vale goud ten leste oppoetste met as.
Benauwde dieren janken almaar hoger, dunner.
Een dimmer hield het kunstlicht huiselijk. En hij,
hij hield het vooralsnog bij opstaan, kaken dicht.
Onvergetelijke avonden, zwaluwstaartjes vlechten
tussen sterven en denken, jihadisten, Socrates
(rechter, berecht me, u bent mijn rechter niet).
Hij snoof. Hij zag het buiten, waar het donkerde,
honds verwilderd voor de ramen van ons huis.
Over de daken viel een zwarte zwerm uiteen,
in lichtschijn trilde mist boven de tuinen.
Gegrom klonk op. Ik ruik het lijk, zei het, het grote.
En hup! de kamer uit. Helaas, nooit weergezien.
René Puthaar (Deventer, 1964)
Zie voor de schrijvers van de 5e augustus ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2012 en ook mijn blog van 5 augustus 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2.
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