Three poems by the Dutch poet Willem Jan Otten

EDEN’S HOLE IN THE ICE

Since I was small I’ve known about this hole.

If my mind’s eye sees it, I see me

in the aforeseen winter’s day when I,

truanting in the lingering dawn,

risked the unskated, man-forsaken void of

the Ankeveen Lake where this very same hole,

with me aforethought, lay in wait.

If my mind’s eye sees it, I see me

in this hole until it starts to sing of sunk;

a hole is singing softly in my ear,

becoming now not fear alone but

what I hear: a voice, a sound, a moan.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On every branch lay snow down to the slightest twig.
No wind no roe no sigh no thing that stirred.
Each branch a hand with on its back a bubble
floated down and yet intact. It did not snow.

Oh take me further on than stillness will,
I fearer who breathes amen ice-holes in all frosted
panes, if need be squeeze me through your eye.

Were now the sun to shine, from every branch would
drifting snow sift snowing blessing into snow.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EARLY NOVEMBER

The swallows have flitted a long time since.
Today, though, eddies swirled of such a wind
as makes the swallows recollect their Nile,
a vestige, hot and cruel, of summer saying
soul is what twirls and swoops in twittering
loops against a long-deserted sky.