Poem

Hanny Michaelis

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Original language

Stretched out on your back

Stretched out on your back
with your feet in the present
and your head connected to
some irretrievably distant
past it is no wonder
the tension threatens to break you
every night.
But that you find the strength
every morning afresh
to lift yourself up and get out of bed
leaves me awe-struck.

© Translation: 2009, Judith Wilkinson
Publisher: Earlier version published on www.languageandculture.net, , 2005

Ruggelings uitgestrekt

Ruggelings uitgestrekt
met je voeten in het heden
en je hoofd gekoppeld aan
een onachterhaalbaar ver
verleden is het geen wonder
dat je iedere nacht
van spanning dreigt te breken.
Maar dat je elke dag opnieuw
de kracht vindt om overeind
en uit je bed te komen
vervult me met ontzag.

© 1996, Hanny Michaelis
From: Verzamelde Gedichten
Publisher: Uitgeverij G.A Van Oorschot, Amsterdam

Hanny Michaelis

Hanny Michaelis

(The Netherlands, 1922 - 2007)

Hanny Michaelis was born in 1922 in Amsterdam, and her small but distinctive oeuvre has been awarded numerous literary prizes. Michaelis established a reputation as a poet of contained lyricism, and her work is characteristically tempered by an almost wry awareness of limitation. While her poems are often marked by an epigrammatic conciseness and an element of detached and analytical reflection...

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Poems

Poems of Hanny Michaelis

This evening I learnt

Hanny Michaelis

A morning

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Slowly but surely

Hanny Michaelis

Love rolled away

Hanny Michaelis

Tantalising uncertainty,

Hanny Michaelis

What it would have been like

Hanny Michaelis

Sometimes like gems

Hanny Michaelis

Stretched out on your back

Hanny Michaelis

In an unguarded moment

Hanny Michaelis

Years later

Hanny Michaelis

Close

Stretched out on your back

Stretched out on your back
with your feet in the present
and your head connected to
some irretrievably distant
past it is no wonder
the tension threatens to break you
every night.
But that you find the strength
every morning afresh
to lift yourself up and get out of bed
leaves me awe-struck.

© 2009, Judith Wilkinson
From: Verzamelde Gedichten
Publisher: 2005, Earlier version published on www.languageandculture.net, Amsterdam

Stretched out on your back

Stretched out on your back
with your feet in the present
and your head connected to
some irretrievably distant
past it is no wonder
the tension threatens to break you
every night.
But that you find the strength
every morning afresh
to lift yourself up and get out of bed
leaves me awe-struck.

© 2009, Judith Wilkinson
Publisher: 2005, Earlier version published on www.languageandculture.net,

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