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
Lees verder “Dannie Abse, Lodewijk van Deyssel, Fay Weldon, György Faludy”
