Poem by the Dutch poet Esther Jansma

Soil survey

This is ancient ground, time is slowed right down,

here all of its moments lie in being

past, the chaos of centuries, stacked,

stratified and brought to order. We read

for example a floor in the heart of the city

far below ground level, in the surrounding walls

the toppled brackets of vaults,

a door opening blocked with the reclining

dashes of stones – someone has stood

here on shoes that have never been found

in the dank twilight of his cellar

on flagstones that made no one stop

and thought: that door must go. For he had time,

it was continuously now. He built and

altered buildings, his present was eternal

and there was so much to want, to hold on to.