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Gedicht

Lyor Shternberg

THE PAGE IS A LANDSCAPE

I place a few shrubs in the south, (close
to my chest). Further north on a random
white hill, a young woman from the past
sits and plucks petals
from a daisy she picked very near where
the pen touches now.
 
It’s not easy to contain all one sees. The eye-
fan trembles from strain
and sun. The greatest temptation
is to abandon everything and slide into silence
like a dune, toward oblivion
and I would have unless I had known
the page would not disappear.
 
This is how we live. Dark
or discovered, by turns. You, me, the bastard
page, beloved, a reminder not to leave,
and the young woman too (grown, meanwhile,
and more beautiful) who has finished plucking flower petals
and floats gently now
between the lines –
 
her arms spread wide, hair
breathing in the blue afternoon light.
Don’t worry. She
stays.
 

THE PAGE IS A LANDSCAPE

Lyor Shternberg

Lyor Shternberg

(Israël, 1967)

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THE PAGE IS A LANDSCAPE

THE PAGE IS A LANDSCAPE

I place a few shrubs in the south, (close
to my chest). Further north on a random
white hill, a young woman from the past
sits and plucks petals
from a daisy she picked very near where
the pen touches now.
 
It’s not easy to contain all one sees. The eye-
fan trembles from strain
and sun. The greatest temptation
is to abandon everything and slide into silence
like a dune, toward oblivion
and I would have unless I had known
the page would not disappear.
 
This is how we live. Dark
or discovered, by turns. You, me, the bastard
page, beloved, a reminder not to leave,
and the young woman too (grown, meanwhile,
and more beautiful) who has finished plucking flower petals
and floats gently now
between the lines –
 
her arms spread wide, hair
breathing in the blue afternoon light.
Don’t worry. She
stays.
 
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
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