Poem
Ramsey Nasr
What\'s Left
1.Imagine a room. The room contains a number of regular elements.
There is a window on the left. There is the light it admits. A pearl necklace
and a yellow satin coat with an ermine collar. Invariably there is a table
to display the elements: look, a loaf of bread; look, a basket.
These are the organs.
Adorning the back of the room is a painting or a map. At least, a nail.
Then the canvas is gone for a moment, standing behind the observer.
Painting, window, mirror and map form the boundaries
a second skin to live in. A miraculous membrane breathing
between inside and out.
Only the visitors change. They move the organs now and then
stand motionless in their closed systems of paint and sable hairs
open the window, play lute or guitar, read letters, pour milk
or stand in the Dutch room, all warm gravidity.
Like this lady.
With her belly before her like a glowing sickle
she seems to weigh air. She is expectant. But of what?
The woman is not weighing, she is waiting. Like some kind of Mary
wrapped in the night’s pouch of blue and white. Unapproachable
heart with two dishes.
People see her for much that she is not. They used to say,
“Vanitas. The woman is pondering eternal life.” They called her
Woman Weighing Gold. Or Pearls. Her belly a crowded room full.
It was the gleam that misled us like aureoles, for centuries.
Because the dishes are empty.
And those who seek references, want deep-sea insights or cherish
higher values should do just that, but this is enough.
For me this is sufficient, like a pagan faith in the tangible.
The sublime resides in this room. A crust is a window is a table.
Vermeer was the great equaliser.
When the painter died, he left the organs intact:
the glass, the paintings, the map and also the yellow coat
that had been worn by one woman and then another
they were still there in the room, which seemed no emptier than usual.
Only the master was gone.
Not a sketch or drawing of him remained, today we know
virtually nothing, no diary excerpts or chance letters
except the letters on his paintings, that have since been spread
over The Hague, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, New York and Washington.
The room has multiplied.
2.
There is another room as well. This room is scarcely lit.
Nothing on the table. It is quiet and deserted. The window
is round and tiny. A peephole through which the world
looked in, casting a sky-blue colour on the wall.
This was the boardroom.
From here loans were handed out for years like so many pearls.
Passing the readies to anyone able to mist a mirror or sign
on the line unaided while meanwhile they tried to keep the pearl
or at least withhold the gleam so they could flog it again later
on a separate occasion,
by transferring it to a new room, where they could chisel
the weight away from the gleam to deliberately lay it on
someone else’s table as their holy credit rating, over and over
on someone else’s hopeful table – risk has to move, move away, fast
out of this room, further still
from room to room, until in the last pitch-black corner
the shadow of the weight of the gleam of the former pearl was also
removed, and the caboodle repacked so many times the walls began
to slide and tunnels formed of their own accord like bundles of nerves
in a system with no exit.
And the system
saw that it was good
neither head nor tail
uncentred excessive
it was lighter than ether
better than perfect.
Its only reference self-referential
it became more and more multipliable. It spread across
the waters in expanding ecstasy as a sky-blue light, from New York
to Paris, Berlin and The Hague, Amsterdam – until finally
no one was able to distinguish a mirror from a window.
Technically speaking things were going
peachy. Casting aside moralism even cancer
can be seen as a chivalrous form of reproduction
unadulterated profit in fact. We were overrun with prosperity.
It was just a downer when someone asked about the pearl necklace.
The pearls . . . yeah. Where had they got to?
They were crushed and spread, love, like glittering confetti
somewhere on the edges of our economy. But where exactly,
that is the question. And the woman asked once more about her pearls.
Two dishes in her hand. Outside, like a lump of twilight, the sun began to set.
In Washington, basking in her lead yellow glow
the lady had waited and waited. Now she watched
as the dishes gradually came to a standstill, as before her eyes
in a sudden equilibrium of thin air and deliberate hot air the whole
system collapsed like a punctured lung – room after room after room.
3.
I have a suggestion.
It’s time to count our blessings. Milk. Earrings.
Delft bricks. We are the owners of light. Like good
trustees we should feed ourselves again with paint.
That’s not difficult.
You take a shockproof container to America and ask,
“The orange curtain, that light from the left and that pair of old dishes
can we borrow them? In a couple of months we’ll bring it all back.”
But we won’t.
That canvas is staying here. We’re going to dismantle
and bring back every room. We’ll reassemble the lot and
sit down in that one room. Calmly counting what’s left.
This is what’s left:
one mirror. Two hands. Black-and-white floor, golden edges
glowing sickle and ultramarine. The cinders of a catastrophe
are as tangible as bread or glass. As edible as a table.
This at least – this is real.
Let the pregnant woman stay here, in this building. Not out of greed
but to save our lives. We gave them the gleam of a pearl as a pledge.
That will have to do. To each his own.
We were screwed right down the line
wrung out to the bone we lived in boxes of optical illusion
but that paint is ours. Today we will learn to look. Let us
cut back in this room, and grow accustomed to the lean years.
Let us use the very last
bonuses we have left, scraped up out of the shameless
chinks of our souls, to get our canvases back and say
That is bread. This is stained glass. And that’s the feel of the glitter of water.
It’s not too late.
Look through the window from outside to in. Go on, look: it says
what it says. And yes, that’s not much. But we too will be rich.
We will learn to take pride in owning empty dishes.
it became more and more multipliable. It spread across
the waters in expanding ecstasy as a sky-blue light, from New York
to Paris, Berlin and The Hague, Amsterdam – until finally
no one was able to distinguish a mirror from a window.
Technically speaking things were going
peachy. Casting aside moralism even cancer
can be seen as a chivalrous form of reproduction
unadulterated profit in fact. We were overrun with prosperity.
It was just a downer when someone asked about the pearl necklace.
The pearls . . . yeah. Where had they got to?
They were crushed and spread, love, like glittering confetti
somewhere on the edges of our economy. But where exactly,
that is the question. And the woman asked once more about her pearls.
Two dishes in her hand. Outside, like a lump of twilight, the sun began to set.
In Washington, basking in her lead yellow glow
the lady had waited and waited. Now she watched
as the dishes gradually came to a standstill, as before her eyes
in a sudden equilibrium of thin air and deliberate hot air the whole
system collapsed like a punctured lung – room after room after room.
3.
I have a suggestion.
It’s time to count our blessings. Milk. Earrings.
Delft bricks. We are the owners of light. Like good
trustees we should feed ourselves again with paint.
That’s not difficult.
You take a shockproof container to America and ask,
“The orange curtain, that light from the left and that pair of old dishes
can we borrow them? In a couple of months we’ll bring it all back.”
But we won’t.
That canvas is staying here. We’re going to dismantle
and bring back every room. We’ll reassemble the lot and
sit down in that one room. Calmly counting what’s left.
This is what’s left:
one mirror. Two hands. Black-and-white floor, golden edges
glowing sickle and ultramarine. The cinders of a catastrophe
are as tangible as bread or glass. As edible as a table.
This at least – this is real.
Let the pregnant woman stay here, in this building. Not out of greed
but to save our lives. We gave them the gleam of a pearl as a pledge.
That will have to do. To each his own.
We were screwed right down the line
wrung out to the bone we lived in boxes of optical illusion
but that paint is ours. Today we will learn to look. Let us
cut back in this room, and grow accustomed to the lean years.
Let us use the very last
bonuses we have left, scraped up out of the shameless
chinks of our souls, to get our canvases back and say
That is bread. This is stained glass. And that’s the feel of the glitter of water.
It’s not too late.
Look through the window from outside to in. Go on, look: it says
what it says. And yes, that’s not much. But we too will be rich.
We will learn to take pride in owning empty dishes.
© Translation: 2009, David Colmer
The first poem Nasr wrote as Poet Laureate was inspired by Johannes Vermeer’s painting Woman Holding a Balance. The painting was on display in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam from 11 March through 1 June 2009, on loan from the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Wat ons rest
Wat ons rest
1.Stel, er is een kamer. De kamer telt een vast aantal onderdelen.
Er is een raam op links. Er is licht dat erdoor valt. Een collier van parels
en een geel satijnen jakje met hermelijnen kraag. Steevast ook een tafel
om de onderdelen te tonen: kijk een brood, kijk een mandje.
Dit zijn de organen.
Op de achtergrond van de kamer prijkt een schilderij of landkaart.
Of tenminste een spijker. Dan is het doek even weg, staat het achter de kijker.
Schilderij, raam, spiegel en landkaart vormen de begrenzing
een tweede huid om in te wonen. Wonderlijk membraan dat ademt
tussen binnen en buiten.
Enkel de bezoekers veranderen. Zij verplaatsen nu en dan de organen
staan stil in hun gesloten systeem van verf en marterharen
openen het raam, spelen luit of gitaar, lezen brieven, schenken melk
of staan bijna levendbarend in de Hollandse kamer.
Zoals deze dame.
Met haar buik voor zich uit als een gloeiende sikkel
lijkt ze lucht te wegen. En ze gaat zwanger. Maar van wat?
Bovendien, de vrouw weegt niet: ze wacht. Als een halve Maria
staat ze stil in haar blauwwitte buidel van de nacht. Niet te naderen
hart met twee schalen.
Men ziet veel in haar dat er niet is. Vroeger zei men: ‘Type Vanitas.
De vrouw mediteert op het eeuwige leven.’ Ze kreeg namen als
Weegster van Goud. Of van Parels. Haar buik leek een huiskamer vol.
Het was de glans die ons misleid heeft als aureolen, eeuwenlang.
Want de schalen zijn leeg.
En wie verwijzingen zoekt, diepzeekijken wil of juist hogere
waarden wil koesteren, moet dat vooral doen, maar dit is genoeg.
Dit volstaat voor mij, als een heidens geloof in het tastbare.
Het hogere huist in de kamer. Een raam is een broodkorst is een tafel.
Vermeer was de grote gelijkmaker.
Toen de schilder stierf, bleken de organen intact nagelaten:
het glas, de schilderijen, de landkaart en ook het gele jakje
dat nu eens door de ene, dan door de andere vrouw was gedragen
ze lagen nog altijd in de kamer, die niet leger leek dan anders.
Alleen de beheerder was verdwenen.
Geen schets of tekening bleef van hem over, vrijwel niets
is ons vandaag bekend, geen dagboekfragment of toevallige brief
behalve de brieven op zijn schilderijen, die sindsdien zijn verspreid
over Den Haag, Amsterdam, Berlijn, Parijs, New York en Washington DC.
De kamer heeft zich voortgeplant.
2.
Er bestaat ook een andere kamer. Deze kamer is nauwelijks verlicht.
Niets op tafel. Het is er stil en verlaten. Een klein rond raam
werd in de muur uitgespaard. Door dit gaatje piepte de wereld
naar binnen, verspreidde een hemelsblauwe kleur tegen de wand.
Dit was de bestuurskamer.
Vanuit dit vertrek werden jarenlang als losse parels leningen verstrekt.
Al wie een spiegel kon bewasemen ja zonder hulp een krabbel zetten kon
kreeg knikkers toegerold, terwijl intussen werd gepoogd de parel
te behouden, of tenminste de glans achter te houden en deze apart
nogmaals te verpatsen,
dóór te sluizen naar een nieuwe ruimte, om er dan het gewicht
van de glans los te beitelen en dit moedwillig als heilige
kredietwaardigheid op andermans tafel neer te leggen, telkens weer
andermans hoopvolle tafel - risico moet rollen, weg, snel weg
uit deze kamer, verder nog
van vertrek tot vertrek, tot in een laatste gitzwarte uithoek
ook de schaduw van het gewicht van de glans der voormalige parel
verwijderd was, en de mikmak zo vaak herverpakt dat de muren
uit zichzelf gingen schuiven en tunnels vormden, als zenuwbanen
in een systeem zonder uitgang.
En het systeem
zag dat het goed was
kop noch staart was het
kernloos en zonder maat
lichter dan ether was het
beter dan volmaakt.
Louter naar zichzelf verwijzend
was het almaar menigvuldiger geraakt. Het verspreidde zichzelf
in wijde extase als een hemelsblauw licht over de wateren, van New York
tot Parijs en Berlijn en Den Haag, Amsterdam – net zolang
tot niemand nog een spiegel van een raam kon onderscheiden.
Technisch gezien ging het
helemaal toppie. Wie eenmaal de moraal buiten beschouwing laat
kan zelfs in kanker een galante vorm van voortplanting zien
van pure winst in feite. Wij werden overwoekerd met voorspoed.
De sfeer sloeg pas om toen iemand naar het collier van parels vroeg.
De parels . . . tja. Waar waren die.
Als fonkelconfetti lagen ze verpulverd en uitgezaaid, ergens dáár
aan de randen van onze economie, mevrouwtje. Maar waar precies,
dat is de vraag. En de vrouw vroeg nogmaals om haar parels. In haar hand
twee schalen. Als een schemerbonk begon buiten de zon te dalen.
Badend in haar loodgele gloed
had de dame in Washington aldoor staan wachten. Nu keek ze toe
hoe de schalen eindelijk tot stilstand kwamen, hoe ter plekke
in een plots evenwicht tussen lucht en moedwillige lulkoek
heel dit systeem als een klaplong ineenstortte – kamer op kamer op kamer.
3.
Ik heb een voorstel.
Het wordt tijd onze zegeningen te tellen. Melk. Oorbel.
Baksteen van Delft. Wij zijn de eigenaars van licht. Als goede
beheerders zullen wij ons opnieuw met verf moeten voederen.
Moeilijk is dat niet.
Je neemt een schokvrije kist naar Amerika en vraagt daar:
‘Het oranje gordijn, dat licht van links en die paar oude schalen
mogen wij die lenen? Over twee maanden brengen we alles terug.’
Maar dat doen we niet.
Dit doek blijft hier. Laat ons op deze manier alle kamers
ontmantelen en terughalen. We schuiven de boel weer in elkaar
gaan zitten in die ene kamer. Tellen wij rustig wat ons rest.
Dit is wat rest:
één spiegel. Twee handen. Zwart-witte vloer, gouden randen
gloeiende sikkel en ultramarijn. De sintels van een catastrofe
zijn tastbaar als een brood of glas. Eetbaar als een tafel.
Dit tenminste – dit is echt.
Laat de zwangere vrouw hier blijven, in dit gebouw. Niet uit hebzucht
maar uit lijfsbehoud. We gaven ze de glans van een parel als pand.
Dat moet volstaan. Laat ieder zijn eigen deel ontvangen.
Wij werden consequent belazerd
uitgewoond tot op het bot huisden we in dozen van optisch bedrog
maar die verf is van ons. Vandaag zullen wij leren kijken. Laat ons
verminderen in deze kamer, en wennen aan de magere jaren.
Laat ons met de allerlaatste
bonussen die wij nog hebben, die we uit de schaamteloze kieren
van onze ziel kunnen schrapen, onze doeken terughalen en zeggen:
dat is dus een brood. Dit is glas-in-lood. Zo voelt de schittering van water.
Het is nog niet te laat.
Kijk door het venster van buiten naar binnen. Kijk dan: er staat
wat er staat. En ja, dat is weinig. Maar ook wij zullen rijk zijn.
Wij zullen leren de trotse bezitters van lege schalen te zijn.
was het almaar menigvuldiger geraakt. Het verspreidde zichzelf
in wijde extase als een hemelsblauw licht over de wateren, van New York
tot Parijs en Berlijn en Den Haag, Amsterdam – net zolang
tot niemand nog een spiegel van een raam kon onderscheiden.
Technisch gezien ging het
helemaal toppie. Wie eenmaal de moraal buiten beschouwing laat
kan zelfs in kanker een galante vorm van voortplanting zien
van pure winst in feite. Wij werden overwoekerd met voorspoed.
De sfeer sloeg pas om toen iemand naar het collier van parels vroeg.
De parels . . . tja. Waar waren die.
Als fonkelconfetti lagen ze verpulverd en uitgezaaid, ergens dáár
aan de randen van onze economie, mevrouwtje. Maar waar precies,
dat is de vraag. En de vrouw vroeg nogmaals om haar parels. In haar hand
twee schalen. Als een schemerbonk begon buiten de zon te dalen.
Badend in haar loodgele gloed
had de dame in Washington aldoor staan wachten. Nu keek ze toe
hoe de schalen eindelijk tot stilstand kwamen, hoe ter plekke
in een plots evenwicht tussen lucht en moedwillige lulkoek
heel dit systeem als een klaplong ineenstortte – kamer op kamer op kamer.
3.
Ik heb een voorstel.
Het wordt tijd onze zegeningen te tellen. Melk. Oorbel.
Baksteen van Delft. Wij zijn de eigenaars van licht. Als goede
beheerders zullen wij ons opnieuw met verf moeten voederen.
Moeilijk is dat niet.
Je neemt een schokvrije kist naar Amerika en vraagt daar:
‘Het oranje gordijn, dat licht van links en die paar oude schalen
mogen wij die lenen? Over twee maanden brengen we alles terug.’
Maar dat doen we niet.
Dit doek blijft hier. Laat ons op deze manier alle kamers
ontmantelen en terughalen. We schuiven de boel weer in elkaar
gaan zitten in die ene kamer. Tellen wij rustig wat ons rest.
Dit is wat rest:
één spiegel. Twee handen. Zwart-witte vloer, gouden randen
gloeiende sikkel en ultramarijn. De sintels van een catastrofe
zijn tastbaar als een brood of glas. Eetbaar als een tafel.
Dit tenminste – dit is echt.
Laat de zwangere vrouw hier blijven, in dit gebouw. Niet uit hebzucht
maar uit lijfsbehoud. We gaven ze de glans van een parel als pand.
Dat moet volstaan. Laat ieder zijn eigen deel ontvangen.
Wij werden consequent belazerd
uitgewoond tot op het bot huisden we in dozen van optisch bedrog
maar die verf is van ons. Vandaag zullen wij leren kijken. Laat ons
verminderen in deze kamer, en wennen aan de magere jaren.
Laat ons met de allerlaatste
bonussen die wij nog hebben, die we uit de schaamteloze kieren
van onze ziel kunnen schrapen, onze doeken terughalen en zeggen:
dat is dus een brood. Dit is glas-in-lood. Zo voelt de schittering van water.
Het is nog niet te laat.
Kijk door het venster van buiten naar binnen. Kijk dan: er staat
wat er staat. En ja, dat is weinig. Maar ook wij zullen rijk zijn.
Wij zullen leren de trotse bezitters van lege schalen te zijn.
© 2009, Ramsey Nasr
Het eerste gedicht dat Ramsey Nasr schreef als Dichter des Vaderlands, was geïnspireerd op het schilderij De dame met de weegschaal van Johannes Vermeer. Het schilderij was in het Amsterdamse Rijksmuseum te bezichtigen van 11 maart t/m 1 juni 2009, uitgeleend door the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Poems
Poems of Ramsey Nasr
Close
What\'s Left
1.Imagine a room. The room contains a number of regular elements.
There is a window on the left. There is the light it admits. A pearl necklace
and a yellow satin coat with an ermine collar. Invariably there is a table
to display the elements: look, a loaf of bread; look, a basket.
These are the organs.
Adorning the back of the room is a painting or a map. At least, a nail.
Then the canvas is gone for a moment, standing behind the observer.
Painting, window, mirror and map form the boundaries
a second skin to live in. A miraculous membrane breathing
between inside and out.
Only the visitors change. They move the organs now and then
stand motionless in their closed systems of paint and sable hairs
open the window, play lute or guitar, read letters, pour milk
or stand in the Dutch room, all warm gravidity.
Like this lady.
With her belly before her like a glowing sickle
she seems to weigh air. She is expectant. But of what?
The woman is not weighing, she is waiting. Like some kind of Mary
wrapped in the night’s pouch of blue and white. Unapproachable
heart with two dishes.
People see her for much that she is not. They used to say,
“Vanitas. The woman is pondering eternal life.” They called her
Woman Weighing Gold. Or Pearls. Her belly a crowded room full.
It was the gleam that misled us like aureoles, for centuries.
Because the dishes are empty.
And those who seek references, want deep-sea insights or cherish
higher values should do just that, but this is enough.
For me this is sufficient, like a pagan faith in the tangible.
The sublime resides in this room. A crust is a window is a table.
Vermeer was the great equaliser.
When the painter died, he left the organs intact:
the glass, the paintings, the map and also the yellow coat
that had been worn by one woman and then another
they were still there in the room, which seemed no emptier than usual.
Only the master was gone.
Not a sketch or drawing of him remained, today we know
virtually nothing, no diary excerpts or chance letters
except the letters on his paintings, that have since been spread
over The Hague, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, New York and Washington.
The room has multiplied.
2.
There is another room as well. This room is scarcely lit.
Nothing on the table. It is quiet and deserted. The window
is round and tiny. A peephole through which the world
looked in, casting a sky-blue colour on the wall.
This was the boardroom.
From here loans were handed out for years like so many pearls.
Passing the readies to anyone able to mist a mirror or sign
on the line unaided while meanwhile they tried to keep the pearl
or at least withhold the gleam so they could flog it again later
on a separate occasion,
by transferring it to a new room, where they could chisel
the weight away from the gleam to deliberately lay it on
someone else’s table as their holy credit rating, over and over
on someone else’s hopeful table – risk has to move, move away, fast
out of this room, further still
from room to room, until in the last pitch-black corner
the shadow of the weight of the gleam of the former pearl was also
removed, and the caboodle repacked so many times the walls began
to slide and tunnels formed of their own accord like bundles of nerves
in a system with no exit.
And the system
saw that it was good
neither head nor tail
uncentred excessive
it was lighter than ether
better than perfect.
Its only reference self-referential
it became more and more multipliable. It spread across
the waters in expanding ecstasy as a sky-blue light, from New York
to Paris, Berlin and The Hague, Amsterdam – until finally
no one was able to distinguish a mirror from a window.
Technically speaking things were going
peachy. Casting aside moralism even cancer
can be seen as a chivalrous form of reproduction
unadulterated profit in fact. We were overrun with prosperity.
It was just a downer when someone asked about the pearl necklace.
The pearls . . . yeah. Where had they got to?
They were crushed and spread, love, like glittering confetti
somewhere on the edges of our economy. But where exactly,
that is the question. And the woman asked once more about her pearls.
Two dishes in her hand. Outside, like a lump of twilight, the sun began to set.
In Washington, basking in her lead yellow glow
the lady had waited and waited. Now she watched
as the dishes gradually came to a standstill, as before her eyes
in a sudden equilibrium of thin air and deliberate hot air the whole
system collapsed like a punctured lung – room after room after room.
3.
I have a suggestion.
It’s time to count our blessings. Milk. Earrings.
Delft bricks. We are the owners of light. Like good
trustees we should feed ourselves again with paint.
That’s not difficult.
You take a shockproof container to America and ask,
“The orange curtain, that light from the left and that pair of old dishes
can we borrow them? In a couple of months we’ll bring it all back.”
But we won’t.
That canvas is staying here. We’re going to dismantle
and bring back every room. We’ll reassemble the lot and
sit down in that one room. Calmly counting what’s left.
This is what’s left:
one mirror. Two hands. Black-and-white floor, golden edges
glowing sickle and ultramarine. The cinders of a catastrophe
are as tangible as bread or glass. As edible as a table.
This at least – this is real.
Let the pregnant woman stay here, in this building. Not out of greed
but to save our lives. We gave them the gleam of a pearl as a pledge.
That will have to do. To each his own.
We were screwed right down the line
wrung out to the bone we lived in boxes of optical illusion
but that paint is ours. Today we will learn to look. Let us
cut back in this room, and grow accustomed to the lean years.
Let us use the very last
bonuses we have left, scraped up out of the shameless
chinks of our souls, to get our canvases back and say
That is bread. This is stained glass. And that’s the feel of the glitter of water.
It’s not too late.
Look through the window from outside to in. Go on, look: it says
what it says. And yes, that’s not much. But we too will be rich.
We will learn to take pride in owning empty dishes.
it became more and more multipliable. It spread across
the waters in expanding ecstasy as a sky-blue light, from New York
to Paris, Berlin and The Hague, Amsterdam – until finally
no one was able to distinguish a mirror from a window.
Technically speaking things were going
peachy. Casting aside moralism even cancer
can be seen as a chivalrous form of reproduction
unadulterated profit in fact. We were overrun with prosperity.
It was just a downer when someone asked about the pearl necklace.
The pearls . . . yeah. Where had they got to?
They were crushed and spread, love, like glittering confetti
somewhere on the edges of our economy. But where exactly,
that is the question. And the woman asked once more about her pearls.
Two dishes in her hand. Outside, like a lump of twilight, the sun began to set.
In Washington, basking in her lead yellow glow
the lady had waited and waited. Now she watched
as the dishes gradually came to a standstill, as before her eyes
in a sudden equilibrium of thin air and deliberate hot air the whole
system collapsed like a punctured lung – room after room after room.
3.
I have a suggestion.
It’s time to count our blessings. Milk. Earrings.
Delft bricks. We are the owners of light. Like good
trustees we should feed ourselves again with paint.
That’s not difficult.
You take a shockproof container to America and ask,
“The orange curtain, that light from the left and that pair of old dishes
can we borrow them? In a couple of months we’ll bring it all back.”
But we won’t.
That canvas is staying here. We’re going to dismantle
and bring back every room. We’ll reassemble the lot and
sit down in that one room. Calmly counting what’s left.
This is what’s left:
one mirror. Two hands. Black-and-white floor, golden edges
glowing sickle and ultramarine. The cinders of a catastrophe
are as tangible as bread or glass. As edible as a table.
This at least – this is real.
Let the pregnant woman stay here, in this building. Not out of greed
but to save our lives. We gave them the gleam of a pearl as a pledge.
That will have to do. To each his own.
We were screwed right down the line
wrung out to the bone we lived in boxes of optical illusion
but that paint is ours. Today we will learn to look. Let us
cut back in this room, and grow accustomed to the lean years.
Let us use the very last
bonuses we have left, scraped up out of the shameless
chinks of our souls, to get our canvases back and say
That is bread. This is stained glass. And that’s the feel of the glitter of water.
It’s not too late.
Look through the window from outside to in. Go on, look: it says
what it says. And yes, that’s not much. But we too will be rich.
We will learn to take pride in owning empty dishes.
© 2009, David Colmer
Het eerste gedicht dat Ramsey Nasr schreef als Dichter des Vaderlands, was geïnspireerd op het schilderij De dame met de weegschaal van Johannes Vermeer. Het schilderij was in het Amsterdamse Rijksmuseum te bezichtigen van 11 maart t/m 1 juni 2009, uitgeleend door the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
What\'s Left
1.Imagine a room. The room contains a number of regular elements.
There is a window on the left. There is the light it admits. A pearl necklace
and a yellow satin coat with an ermine collar. Invariably there is a table
to display the elements: look, a loaf of bread; look, a basket.
These are the organs.
Adorning the back of the room is a painting or a map. At least, a nail.
Then the canvas is gone for a moment, standing behind the observer.
Painting, window, mirror and map form the boundaries
a second skin to live in. A miraculous membrane breathing
between inside and out.
Only the visitors change. They move the organs now and then
stand motionless in their closed systems of paint and sable hairs
open the window, play lute or guitar, read letters, pour milk
or stand in the Dutch room, all warm gravidity.
Like this lady.
With her belly before her like a glowing sickle
she seems to weigh air. She is expectant. But of what?
The woman is not weighing, she is waiting. Like some kind of Mary
wrapped in the night’s pouch of blue and white. Unapproachable
heart with two dishes.
People see her for much that she is not. They used to say,
“Vanitas. The woman is pondering eternal life.” They called her
Woman Weighing Gold. Or Pearls. Her belly a crowded room full.
It was the gleam that misled us like aureoles, for centuries.
Because the dishes are empty.
And those who seek references, want deep-sea insights or cherish
higher values should do just that, but this is enough.
For me this is sufficient, like a pagan faith in the tangible.
The sublime resides in this room. A crust is a window is a table.
Vermeer was the great equaliser.
When the painter died, he left the organs intact:
the glass, the paintings, the map and also the yellow coat
that had been worn by one woman and then another
they were still there in the room, which seemed no emptier than usual.
Only the master was gone.
Not a sketch or drawing of him remained, today we know
virtually nothing, no diary excerpts or chance letters
except the letters on his paintings, that have since been spread
over The Hague, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, New York and Washington.
The room has multiplied.
2.
There is another room as well. This room is scarcely lit.
Nothing on the table. It is quiet and deserted. The window
is round and tiny. A peephole through which the world
looked in, casting a sky-blue colour on the wall.
This was the boardroom.
From here loans were handed out for years like so many pearls.
Passing the readies to anyone able to mist a mirror or sign
on the line unaided while meanwhile they tried to keep the pearl
or at least withhold the gleam so they could flog it again later
on a separate occasion,
by transferring it to a new room, where they could chisel
the weight away from the gleam to deliberately lay it on
someone else’s table as their holy credit rating, over and over
on someone else’s hopeful table – risk has to move, move away, fast
out of this room, further still
from room to room, until in the last pitch-black corner
the shadow of the weight of the gleam of the former pearl was also
removed, and the caboodle repacked so many times the walls began
to slide and tunnels formed of their own accord like bundles of nerves
in a system with no exit.
And the system
saw that it was good
neither head nor tail
uncentred excessive
it was lighter than ether
better than perfect.
Its only reference self-referential
it became more and more multipliable. It spread across
the waters in expanding ecstasy as a sky-blue light, from New York
to Paris, Berlin and The Hague, Amsterdam – until finally
no one was able to distinguish a mirror from a window.
Technically speaking things were going
peachy. Casting aside moralism even cancer
can be seen as a chivalrous form of reproduction
unadulterated profit in fact. We were overrun with prosperity.
It was just a downer when someone asked about the pearl necklace.
The pearls . . . yeah. Where had they got to?
They were crushed and spread, love, like glittering confetti
somewhere on the edges of our economy. But where exactly,
that is the question. And the woman asked once more about her pearls.
Two dishes in her hand. Outside, like a lump of twilight, the sun began to set.
In Washington, basking in her lead yellow glow
the lady had waited and waited. Now she watched
as the dishes gradually came to a standstill, as before her eyes
in a sudden equilibrium of thin air and deliberate hot air the whole
system collapsed like a punctured lung – room after room after room.
3.
I have a suggestion.
It’s time to count our blessings. Milk. Earrings.
Delft bricks. We are the owners of light. Like good
trustees we should feed ourselves again with paint.
That’s not difficult.
You take a shockproof container to America and ask,
“The orange curtain, that light from the left and that pair of old dishes
can we borrow them? In a couple of months we’ll bring it all back.”
But we won’t.
That canvas is staying here. We’re going to dismantle
and bring back every room. We’ll reassemble the lot and
sit down in that one room. Calmly counting what’s left.
This is what’s left:
one mirror. Two hands. Black-and-white floor, golden edges
glowing sickle and ultramarine. The cinders of a catastrophe
are as tangible as bread or glass. As edible as a table.
This at least – this is real.
Let the pregnant woman stay here, in this building. Not out of greed
but to save our lives. We gave them the gleam of a pearl as a pledge.
That will have to do. To each his own.
We were screwed right down the line
wrung out to the bone we lived in boxes of optical illusion
but that paint is ours. Today we will learn to look. Let us
cut back in this room, and grow accustomed to the lean years.
Let us use the very last
bonuses we have left, scraped up out of the shameless
chinks of our souls, to get our canvases back and say
That is bread. This is stained glass. And that’s the feel of the glitter of water.
It’s not too late.
Look through the window from outside to in. Go on, look: it says
what it says. And yes, that’s not much. But we too will be rich.
We will learn to take pride in owning empty dishes.
it became more and more multipliable. It spread across
the waters in expanding ecstasy as a sky-blue light, from New York
to Paris, Berlin and The Hague, Amsterdam – until finally
no one was able to distinguish a mirror from a window.
Technically speaking things were going
peachy. Casting aside moralism even cancer
can be seen as a chivalrous form of reproduction
unadulterated profit in fact. We were overrun with prosperity.
It was just a downer when someone asked about the pearl necklace.
The pearls . . . yeah. Where had they got to?
They were crushed and spread, love, like glittering confetti
somewhere on the edges of our economy. But where exactly,
that is the question. And the woman asked once more about her pearls.
Two dishes in her hand. Outside, like a lump of twilight, the sun began to set.
In Washington, basking in her lead yellow glow
the lady had waited and waited. Now she watched
as the dishes gradually came to a standstill, as before her eyes
in a sudden equilibrium of thin air and deliberate hot air the whole
system collapsed like a punctured lung – room after room after room.
3.
I have a suggestion.
It’s time to count our blessings. Milk. Earrings.
Delft bricks. We are the owners of light. Like good
trustees we should feed ourselves again with paint.
That’s not difficult.
You take a shockproof container to America and ask,
“The orange curtain, that light from the left and that pair of old dishes
can we borrow them? In a couple of months we’ll bring it all back.”
But we won’t.
That canvas is staying here. We’re going to dismantle
and bring back every room. We’ll reassemble the lot and
sit down in that one room. Calmly counting what’s left.
This is what’s left:
one mirror. Two hands. Black-and-white floor, golden edges
glowing sickle and ultramarine. The cinders of a catastrophe
are as tangible as bread or glass. As edible as a table.
This at least – this is real.
Let the pregnant woman stay here, in this building. Not out of greed
but to save our lives. We gave them the gleam of a pearl as a pledge.
That will have to do. To each his own.
We were screwed right down the line
wrung out to the bone we lived in boxes of optical illusion
but that paint is ours. Today we will learn to look. Let us
cut back in this room, and grow accustomed to the lean years.
Let us use the very last
bonuses we have left, scraped up out of the shameless
chinks of our souls, to get our canvases back and say
That is bread. This is stained glass. And that’s the feel of the glitter of water.
It’s not too late.
Look through the window from outside to in. Go on, look: it says
what it says. And yes, that’s not much. But we too will be rich.
We will learn to take pride in owning empty dishes.
© 2009, David Colmer
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