Poem
Kim Moore
How The Stones Fell
Hoe de stenen vielen
We leerden dat we geboren waren uit stenen, dat de laatsteman en vrouw die de vloed overleefden van hun vlot klommen
op de schouders van een berg en over het water keken
dat alles verzwolgen had.
Dagenlang was er een zee geweest maar geen kust, nu het water
zijn lip omkrulde en de boomtoppen losliet
volgden de man en de vrouw, liepen zij de helling af,
raakten hun voeten de waterrand,
hun armen gevuld met de botten van de aarde, hun lange haar
dat stroomde tot hun middel. Zij wierpen stenen achter zich
en uit de hand van de man viel een steen die uitgroeide tot
een andere man en uit de hand van de vrouw
viel een steen die uitgroeide tot een andere vrouw en zo groeiden wij,
onze ogen als vuursteen en onze mond die smaakte naar aarde.
We waren geboren uit stenen en voorbestemd te leven
als stenen, en verwarmden ons aan de zon,
barstten open als de temperatuur daalde, we zeiden dat we iets
van de zee in ons hadden, maar daarmee, als met zoveel andere zaken,
logen we, er was nooit water in ons hart, we droegen stenen
in onze zakken, we droegen hen in onze handen.
© Vertaling: 2015, Willem Groenewegen
How The Stones Fell
We learnt that we were born from stones, that the lastman and woman to survive the flood climbed from their raft
onto the shoulders of a mountain and looked across the water
which had swallowed everything.
For days there had been a sea but no shore, now as the water
curled back its lip and let go of the tops of trees
the man and woman followed, walking down the slope,
their feet touching the edges of the water,
their arms full of the bones of the earth, their hair long
and flowing to their waists. They cast stones behind them
and from the hand of the man a stone fell and grew into
another man and from the hand of the woman
a stone fell and grew into another woman and so we grew,
our eyes like flints and our mouths tasting of the earth.
We were born from stones and we were destined to live
like stones, warming ourselves in the sun,
cracking when the temperature fell, we said there was
something of the sea in us, but in this, like many other things
we lied, it was never water in our hearts, we carried stones
in our pockets, we carried them in our hands.
© 2015, Kim Moore
From: The Art of Falling
Publisher: Seren Books, Bridgend
From: The Art of Falling
Publisher: Seren Books, Bridgend
Kim Moore
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1981)
Kim Moore was born in Leicester and moved to Cumbria in 2004, where she now lives and works as a poet and a peripatetic brass teacher. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2011, and in 2012, If We Could Speak Like Wolves was a winner in The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition, chosen by Carol Ann Duffy. Moore won a New Writing North Award in 2014, and her first full collection, The Art of Falling,...
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How The Stones Fell
We learnt that we were born from stones, that the lastman and woman to survive the flood climbed from their raft
onto the shoulders of a mountain and looked across the water
which had swallowed everything.
For days there had been a sea but no shore, now as the water
curled back its lip and let go of the tops of trees
the man and woman followed, walking down the slope,
their feet touching the edges of the water,
their arms full of the bones of the earth, their hair long
and flowing to their waists. They cast stones behind them
and from the hand of the man a stone fell and grew into
another man and from the hand of the woman
a stone fell and grew into another woman and so we grew,
our eyes like flints and our mouths tasting of the earth.
We were born from stones and we were destined to live
like stones, warming ourselves in the sun,
cracking when the temperature fell, we said there was
something of the sea in us, but in this, like many other things
we lied, it was never water in our hearts, we carried stones
in our pockets, we carried them in our hands.
From: The Art of Falling
How The Stones Fell
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