The Dutch poet C.O. Jellema

ALWAYS BLOWING

On such a terp, we said, right close

to such an ancient little church,

we too perhaps – and pointed out

the symbols to each other: butterfly.

hourglass, as a ring round names

the serpent biting its own tail.

It was a day in spring, flowers

already dotting the grass,

the reassuring droning of a tractor

from the field, there was

much wind.

Lightly those things are said as long

as you can speak, can look at me so doing

with that familiar face of yours, but

now that I write it down, search for a word

not made flesh, that did not dwell among us,

for when all that’s left

to me is to think of your voice,

to imagine your face:

what is it calls itself lasting,

what omits itself anywhere;

for when that whole

idea of idyll

goes underground,

what then,

on such a terp, in

it bloweth where it listeth

and thou hearest the sound thereof

but canst not tell whence it cometh

that eternal

wind?

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