A poem by the Dutch poet Joke van Leeuwen

A woman who was old as old

A woman who was old as old,

a hundred years or more,

kept far too much, so I’ve been told,

though where I’m not quite sure.

Those things that someone now forgot,

those things that no one saw,

those things worn out as like as not,

or things in some old drawer.

Those things deep in some antique chest

or in some hidden well,

those things that stuck out from the rest,

all bones or hard to tell.

Not like those found in secret dreams

and those too tired to care,

she’s taken them away, it seems,

though I’m not sure quite where.