Hugo Claus: 'Het weer'

The weather

How the weather in the land was without you?

First a fog descended

over the concrete mountains,

Then the sun hung as mist

over the pearly sand.

Then the air stirred

and turned clammy as your armpits.

Sheet lightning set my teeth on edge.

And everywhere there rose the scent

of the great beasts that do not exist

unless in the rushing of your ear,

and the rustling of your hair.

That is how the weather was there without you.

You are the air pressure and the dew

and the snow inside my skull.

The poem exists in different versions. This translation is of the poem found here.