Thursday, 11 July 2024

Piet Gerbrandy: Unpublished poem ('De eerste keer...')

 

The first time you put on that dress of liquid honey

       sweet-scented transparent tight-fitting I thought

              of linden lavender and fields of heather so purple

 

I started to knead two loaves of spelt and wheat

       springy presently enclosed in rough crusts

              the one reminiscent of earth

              the other merrily risen.

 

Lined with mud and down your nest was perched high

       in the crown of a tree whose name now eludes me

              my attention held by the song of maddened

 

wasps crickets untamed bees your heavenly thighs

       oh the bulging flower of your navel

       oh the dough of your toiling gable

              with windows facing a sun in the languid west.

 

What matters now is the dark water my rain barrel

       has retained with an eye to the bone-dry months

              when my herb garden longs for murmured humming.

 


To see the original text, go to here.

 

 

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