Poem by the Dutch writer Willem Jan Otten

ALEXANDER AND ETERNITY

1

His garden philosopher he called me,

but I was toothless and intrigued him

by being doting and untravelled.

I saw that something scared him,

hard to know precisely what, oh nonsense,

he said, and then I just let slip:

you fear the first of January.

What do you mean, he softly asked.

Eternal one, I said, a chance remark,

I spin on my own axis, while you move.

2

For a great conqueror time is

the forward downward thing,

the deep-descending chute where all

the realm collapses in a ceaseless fall.

Iskander was so right. Time only moves

in one direction. Shall. Shall.

But by the never-ending Royal Road,

at every hamlet’s edge there always stands,

just like a bar line in a music stave,

a mumbling philosopher like me, who waves

and tells Iskander: Your journey, that is me,

and I’ve a memory that’s pitiful,

not even you will I take to my grave.

3

There’s no direction and no downward path,

were there no toothless poet to be passed,

eternity is where the conqueror

without contrivance loses all his wits,

it’s just a flash, and then the sideways step,

the Mighty Will stills all his legions

and wipes the dotard drivel off my skin.