802 | EVENING RETURN

Picture Ineke Janssen
https://vanonsvandaan.wordpress.com

Evening Return

Entrenched in silence, we wait for news

From the outside world that not yet wants to come at once.

We sit in a strange silence, all I wanted to say

Is too late. You were a fixed place, now you are done and gone.

Sometimes, restlessly, we get up, go to your bed for a moment,

Stare nearly reverently at what lies there and is gone.

Orphaned the room around me

The newly upholstered footstool, the recently used cup,

Both brothers surrounded by their wives, dead the TV,

The stains in the rug, and death documents on the table.

Disembodied, you are released.

In the middle of the dying night, I catch the last train.

Marijke Hanegraaf, The Netherlands1946

Translation Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan