A poem by the Dutch writer Martin Reints

Old meeting room

On the pushed-together tables

stands a tray with cups

a glass bowl with sachets of milk-powder

a glass bowl with sachets of sugar

and a packet of tea-bags

thermos flasks, cabinets from a distant past

a flap-over fallen into disuse like

an easel in the south of France

where the air shimmers with the heat

so that the cypresses look like filmed cypresses

an empty, undulating landscape with stone walls

and desolate country cottages

museums with old attendants on folding chairs and

successful directors who

walk past while looking at the paintings

cars in car parks

school buses with schoolchildren.