There’s that nothing. Still lying halfway in my bed
the middle, hidden under the sheets, it

still sitting at my table, to my right, yet lingering
around me taking my hand, it

comes journeying past me. Sometimes I can pierce it, it
splitting apart like a small arrow through

a heart that lengthens, now and then overtaking me, weighty
and difficult it then lies upon me, just as he does.

Often it’s also the mist between the meadows and the calm
water, I must cycle to warm myself,

the villages not automatically entwining, just as often
it’s a dead end street in this

city. A dead dog underneath the tree, black in the
corner of my eye, a line from a psalm, something from the past.

 

vertaling Helle van Aardeberg van het gedicht rechtop