Marc Tritsmans: 'In select company I, III, VI'

 

I

 

Explain to me here why I, while 

writing, of my own free will should 

wish to limit myself to myself. Is there

not in my head surely enough space

 

for resounding polyphony? From now 

on, let all those predictable melodies

simply make way for a chorus 

of disparate dissonances.

 

So I leave this house on a morning

like any other and without taking

a single backward glance let myself be

embraced by the world. Without a compass

 

and while the stars too have kept hidden 

behind clouds for quite some time.

I have no goal in mind. And no,

I am no longer in search of meaning.

III

 

In the branches, which until just now

I could only make out vaguely from 

on the ground, I now gradually discern, 

in the track of this highly nimble squirrel 

 

a formerly inextricable and secret

network of tracks and paths that

is suddenly unfolded into this three-

dimensional world. Possibilities

 

emerge everywhere and how unexpectedly

playfully things take place here: repeatedly

new escape routes manifest themselves and

challenging leaps that put our resilience

 

and suppleness to the test. And it is

my bushy tail and those sharp nails

that make the difference. Very soon height

is not an issue any more, falling no option.

VI

 

While cars drive past us we are sitting here

next to each other in the tall grass. Are we

trying to show each other what we still dare?

For our spoon-shaped ears really do stick up

 

challengingly a good bit above everything.

Or are the two of us trying to defend

with the courage of despair this last

bastion, this bridgehead the access

 

to which is increasingly being pinched off

by the unceasing advance of houses and 

roads. Until it will degenerate into an 

inhabitable island: this once blessed 

 

terrain of playing and living, where we 

bore our offspring as hares happen to prefer

most of all: in the snow. Which however 

we have not been seeing for ages now.