Dolce far niente
Sundown and All the Damage Done
Nearly nine and still the sun’s not slunk
into its nightly digs. The burnt meat smell
of mid-week cookouts and wet grass
hangs in the air like loose familiar summer
garb. Standing by the magnolia tree, I think
if I were to live as long as she did, I’d have
eleven more years. And if I were to live as long
as him, I’d have forty-nine. As long as him,
I’d be dead already. As long as her, this
would be my final year. There’s a strange
contentment to this countdown, a nodding
to this time, where I get to stand under
the waxy leaves of the ancient genus, a tree
that appeared before even the bees, and
watch as fireflies land on the tough tepals
until each broad flower glows like a torch-lit
mausoleum. They call the beetle’s conspicuous
bioluminescence “a cold light,” but why then,
do I still feel so much fire?
Sonoma
De Ierse dichter en schrijver Paul Muldoon werd geboren in Portadown, County Armagh, in Noord-Ierland op 20 juni 1951, Zie ook alle tags voor Paul Muldoon op dit blog.
Brock
Small wonder
he’s not been sighted all winter;
this old brock’s
been to Normandy and back
through the tunnels and trenches
of his subconscious.
His father fell victim
to mustard-gas at the Somme;
one of his sons lost a paw
to a gin-trap at Lisbellaw:
another drills
on the Antrim hills’
still-molten lava
in a moth-eaten Balaclava.
An elaborate
system of foxholes and duckboards
leads to the terminal moraine
of an ex-linen baron’s
croquet-lawn
where he’s part-time groundsman.
I would find it somewhat infra dig
to dismiss him simply as a pig
or heed Gerald of Wales’
tall tales
of badgers keeping badger-slaves.
For when he shuffles
across the esker
I glimpse my grandfather’s whiskers
stained with tobacco-pollen.
When he piddles against a bullaun
I know he carries bovine TB
but what I see
is my father in his Sunday suit’s
bespoke lime and lignite,
patrolling his now-diminished estate
and taking stock of this and that.
Anseo
When the Master was calling the roll
At the primary school in Collegelands,
You were meant to call back Anseo
And raise your hand
As your name occurred.
Anseo, meaning here, here and now,
All present and correct,
Was the first word of Irish I spoke.
The last name on the ledger
Belonged to Joseph Mary Plunkett Ward
And was followed, as often as not,
By silence, knowing looks,
A nod and a wink, the Master’s droll
‘And where’s our little Ward-of-court?’
I remember the first time he came back
The Master had sent him out
Along the hedges
To weigh up for himself and cut
A stick with which he would be beaten.
After a while, nothing was spoken;
He would arrive as a matter of course
With an ash-plant, a salley-rod.
Or, finally, the hazel-wand
He had whittled down to a whip-lash,
Its twist of red and yellow lacquers
Sanded and polished,
And altogether so delicately wrought
That he had engraved his initials on it.
I last met Joseph Mary Plunkett Ward
In a pub just over the Irish border.
He was living in the open,
In a secret camp
On the other side of the mountain.
He was fighting for Ireland,
Making things happen.
And he told me, Joe Ward,
Of how he had risen through the ranks
To Quartermaster, Commandant:
How every morning at parade
His volunteers would call back Anseo
And raise their hands
As their names occurred.
De Indische schrijver Vikram Seth werd geboren op 20 juni 1952 in Kolkata. Zie ook alle tags voor Vikram Seth op dit blog.
ONOPGEËIST
Naar bed gaan met een vreemde is het best.
Er is geen raadsel en er is geen test. –
Samen naar bed gaan, zonder dwang dit nader
Te plaatsen in ons referentiekader.
Elkaar strelen, zonder vrees voor dag
Elkaar begrijpen, zoals vreemd vermag.
Elkaars vreemde hart te voelen slaan
Niet liever blijven en niet liever gaan.
In onbekende armen rustend weten
Dat dit dus alles is; dit ’t moet heten.
Vertaald door Ko Kooman
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 20e juni ook mijn blog van 20 juni 2025 en ook mijn blog van 20 juni 2020 en eveneens mijn blog van 20 juni 2019 en ook mijn blog van 20 juni 2015 deel 2.