De Britse dichter en schrijver Dannie Abse werd geboren op 22 september 1923 in Cardiff, Wales. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Dannie Abse op dit blog.
The Water Diviner
Late, I have come to a parched land
doubting my gift, if gift I have,
the inspiration of water
spilt, swallowed in the sand.
To hear once more water trickle,
to stand in a stretch of silence
the divining pen twisting in the hand:
sign of depths alluvial.
Water owns no permanent shape,
sags, is most itself descending;
now, under the shadow of the idol,
dry mouth and dry landscape.
No rain falls with a refreshing sound
to settle tubular in a well,
elliptical in a bowl. No grape
lusciously moulds it round.
Clouds have no constant resemblance
to anything, blown by a hot wind,
flying mirages; the blue background,
light constructions of chance.
To hold back chaos I transformed
amorphous mass—and fire and cloud—
so that the agèd gods might dance
and golden structures form.
I should have built, plain brick on brick,
a water tower. The sun flies on
arid wastes, barren hells too warm
and me with a hazel stick!
Rivulets vanished in the dust
long ago, great compositions
vaporized, salt on the tongue so thick
that drinking, still I thirst.
Repeated desert, recurring drought,
sometimes hearing water trickle,
sometimes not, I, by doubting first,
believe; believing, doubt.
The Uninvited
They came into our lives unasked for.
there was light momentarily, a flicker of wings,
a dance, a voice, and then they went out
again, like a light, leaving us not so much
in darkness, but in a different place
and alone as never before
so we have been changed.
and our vision no longer what it was,
and our hopes no longer what they were;
so a piece of us has gone out with them also,
a cold dream subtracted without malice,
the weight of another world added also,
and we did not ask, we did not ask ever
for those who stood smiling
and with flowers before the open door.
We did not beckon them in, they came in uninvited,
the sunset pouring from their shoulders;
so they walked through us as they would through water,
and we are here, in a different place,
changed and incredibly alone,
and we did not know, we do not know ever.
Dannie Abse (Cardiff, 22 september 1923)
Portret door Josef Herman, rond 1973
De Nederlandse schrijver Lodewijk van Deyssel werd geboren op 22 september 1864 in Amsterdam. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Lodewijk van Deyssel op dit blog.
Uit: Gedenkschriften
“Maar Rolduc was véél mooier! Rolduc was een pracht-oord. Voor iemand, die zelden of nooit bergen gezien had – ik kende toen alleen die van Theux en die van Luik, waar wij mijne zuster in haar kloosters bezochten -, een voortdurend verblijf in een oude abdij, afzonderlijk gelegen in een gebergte. Zelfs de gewone manieren van huizen-bouwen, met steensoorten, metselspecie en metselwijze, geschiedde te Rolduc anders dan in Holland, zoo dat ook nieuw aangebouwde gedeelten van het gesticht iets aan zich hadden, waardoor zij ook vreemd en als uit ouden tijd schenen te zijn. Een oude abdij in een gebergte, met de schoonste kerk van het geheele land, een dertiende-eeuwsche. Een oude abdij in een gebergte, met Limburgsche geestelijken, Limburgsche jongens, en Limburgsche knechts, die elk voor een derde Duitscher, voor een derde Belg, en voor een derde Nederlanders uit een ver gewest waren. Een pachtige in zich zelf volledige gemeenschap, aan welks leden men ter nauwer nood bespeurde, dat zij soms verbindingen met dorpen of andere gemeenschappen in de, overigens óók vreemde, streek hadden.
Iets moois, iets om te beminnen, lijkt mij de positie van Directeur van zulk eene instelling. Al die jongens, bij het Bestuur van wier opvoeding hij vóor-zit, zullen over tien, over twintig jaar de mannen zijn, die het menschen-leven uitmaken, aanvoeren, voort-planten in de verschillende streken van Nederland. Al die innerlijke en uiterlijke, bewegelijke en onbewegelijke, levensvormen, door welke in en om de dorpen en steden, dit leven ons zoo veel beter lijkt dan waar vooral het afkeurenswaardige en beklagenswaardige te zien is en de geheele stand van het leven dus lager of valsch is, – zullen de leeraren der opvoedingsgestichten, met hun Directeur aan het hoofd, hebben voorbereid en dus mede veroorzaakt.”
Lodewijk van Deyssel (22 september 1864 – 26 januari 1952)
Rolduc, Kerkrade
De Britse schrijfster Fay Weldon werd geboren op 22 september 1931 in Alvechurch, Engeland. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Fay Weldon op dit blog
Uit:Run Daddy And Ask If He Has Any More Money
“Well now! It was Easter and my friend David was helping his wife Milly Frood in the shop when he heard a voice he recognised crying loud and clear across the crowded room, “Run and ask Daddy if he has any more money,” and his blood ran cold.
Easter is upon us now. It is a season when we should reflect upon our sins and consider the pain we cause others, especially those who have no choice but to put up with us; this trauma of self-knowledge, self-revelation, culminating on Easter Friday, leaving us Saturday to shop and recover, so that on Sunday we can wake exhilarated to our new selves–and then have Monday to calm down a bit and prepare to get back to work. Should, should! Mostly we just give each other cards and Easter eggs and are grateful for the holiday.
David is in his early forties. He has not very much reddish hair and an abundant, very red beard. He wears a tweed jacket. He is now a professor. He used to be a mere lecturer but his Polytechnic turned into a University and voila! there he was, Professor Frood, a pillar of society: looked up to and trusted: a family man.
A really nice guy, too: the trustful kind, prone to loving not wisely but too well, as the best people are. But that is all in the past, of course. Professors can’t muck about. There’s too much at stake. All that a man can do is hope that the past, burrowing away like some mole through the pleasant green fields of his present, doesn’t surface and spoil everything in an explosion of mud and dirt.
This particular Thursday before Easter, at two minutes past four in the afternoon, it seemed as if it very well might.
Milly Frood is sometimes spoken of by friends as Frilly Mood. They’re being ironic. She’s a really un-frilly, serious, nice, good woman. She has straight hair and a fringe and a plump, rather expressionless, round face and a body well draped in unnoticeable clothes. The Frood children, Sherry and Baf, now in their teenage years, have never wittingly eaten sugar or meat under their own roof: Frilly Mood has seen to that. The kids are healthy if a little thin, and very polite. Frilly Mood’s done well by them. It is no crime to be serious.”
Fay Weldon (Alvechurch, 22 september 1931)
De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver György Faludy werd geboren op 22 september 1910 in Boedapest. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor György Faludy op dit blog.
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LOVE POEM
(To F. K.)
She was far from the first. We lay there naked
and, with one arm, I lightly caressed her body.
I hoped it should be quite agreeable
with just a touch of customary boredom.
It turned out to be more. I leaned above
her small left nipple musing what to compare
it with: a speck of coral? or a wild strawberry?
a tiny tulip still in bud perhaps?
Only an instant had passed and I entered a different
reality. Had I fainted or just awoken?
Around us stillness prevailed and blue, insane
wildflowers began to whirl behind my forehead.
It was the taste and fragrance of your skin,
not your perfume, that utterly triumphed. They thrust
away my troubles, cares and fears and sorrows,
my past and memories, leaving only this love.
Packed into one another, we two alone
inhabit the earth, our shoulders spliced in stages.
We lose our way in one another’s hair.
We meditate on one another’s navel.
You can go away but will remain with me holding
between my teeth a single strand of your hair.
I use your body’s shadow for my cover.
Say not a word, for all our secrets are shared.
Many people are never touched by such passion
and many would never dare to risk it, even
though this is all that I recognize as love:
soaring all the way from our bedsheets to heaven.
Vertaald door Thomas Ország-Land
György Faludy (22 september 1910 – 1 september 2006)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 22e september ook mijn blog van 22 september 2012 deel 2.