Poem
Stefan Hertmans
ON THE RUN
He had a handThat pointed to the horizon.
The other was not there.
His mother, once a myth of spring,
The trembling of her lower lip,
The pain that wandered through the heat,
And how it was on the waves.
He still remembers how the light went under,
How everything in his body died
And that he then
Had that hand again, another
Which refused what he didn’t have,
Something they never gave
Though they held it out to him.
He spoke of black horizons,
A world with no way in,
Tear gas and dead children,
Barbed wire in his own mind.
No one promising anything.
© Translation: 2016, Donald Gardner
Op de vlucht
Op de vlucht
Hij had een hand dieNaar de einder wees
en een die er niet was.
Zijn moeder ooit een lentesprookje,
Het trillen van haar onderlip,
De pijn die door de hitte liep
En hoe het op de golven was.
Hij weet nog hoe licht onderging,
Hoe alles doofde in zijn lijf,
En dat hij dan
Die hand weer had, een andere,
Die weigerde wat hem ontbrak,
Iets wat men naar hem uitstak
Maar niet gaf.
Hij sprak van zwarte einders,
Een wereld zonder opening,
Traangas en dode kinderen,
Prikkeldraad in het eigen hoofd.
Niemand die iets belooft.
© 2015, Stefan Hertmans
From: Neem en lees
Publisher: CPNB,
From: Neem en lees
Publisher: CPNB,
Poems
Poems of Stefan Hertmans
Close
ON THE RUN
He had a handThat pointed to the horizon.
The other was not there.
His mother, once a myth of spring,
The trembling of her lower lip,
The pain that wandered through the heat,
And how it was on the waves.
He still remembers how the light went under,
How everything in his body died
And that he then
Had that hand again, another
Which refused what he didn’t have,
Something they never gave
Though they held it out to him.
He spoke of black horizons,
A world with no way in,
Tear gas and dead children,
Barbed wire in his own mind.
No one promising anything.
© 2016, Donald Gardner
From: Neem en lees
From: Neem en lees
ON THE RUN
He had a handThat pointed to the horizon.
The other was not there.
His mother, once a myth of spring,
The trembling of her lower lip,
The pain that wandered through the heat,
And how it was on the waves.
He still remembers how the light went under,
How everything in his body died
And that he then
Had that hand again, another
Which refused what he didn’t have,
Something they never gave
Though they held it out to him.
He spoke of black horizons,
A world with no way in,
Tear gas and dead children,
Barbed wire in his own mind.
No one promising anything.
© 2016, Donald Gardner
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