Monday 29 October 2012

Poem by the Dutch writer
René Huigen

The Zeppelin or Rosendahl bend

Totally uninterested
in the extremities that it combines,
in bridges that it builds and roundabout
gestures, the beauty
of an ideal knot can be seen
from the ease with which it can
be tied and also be undone,
despite the enormous force of the pull
exerted on it – at which it displays
a detached involvement

It is strong and reliable, shockproof,
and perfectly symmetrical, as subtle as the pattern
depicted on the back of a butterfly

Powerful enough to lift climbers
onto mountain summits

A unique ornament round the neck
of everyone hanged
man or woman, guilty
or innocent – it knows itself in everything

To be an example simply demonstrated
even to children

Whether involving patent leathers
with loose laces that trip you up

Or something as fleeting
as a dream, filled with helium,
a sloop at its mooring, ready
to embark

No sky ever reaches high enough
to need to fall still deeper,

But maintains precisely motionless, fixedly the midpoint
so as to offer what by nature wants to drift
something to hold on to

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