Another poem by the Dutch poet Alfred Schaffer

All work and no play

How busy it is on the road, what a strange tune you’ve got

there in your head, in a little while you’ll hear cries of despair,

classical languages. Radio-play sounds without love. Warm love,

palms upright and waving. Many daytrippers, unable

to ask you the way. I should actually draw a map of this

ancient site, with columns and temples on it, that the water

is blue everywhere, the commotion by that water, the litter

left lying on the beach, the empty Ferris wheel. And the desire,

I must learn this terrestrial globe by heart like the clappers

before I stand stuttering before my children’s children, yes, just you

laugh, your father stood his ground the old-fashioned way,

he photographed almost the entire war. But that was

before stupidity arrived. Strange, that I always want to speak to you

in the past tense – your father would have found it splendid here.