The Edge of the City
En dan ook in het Engels? Why not!
Oever van de Stad in het Engels, door Margriet Boleij en Mary Burdett-Jones:
The edge of the city
I am standing in a rain that ticks little holes
in the ring-dyke, silly tyrant,
good-natured and earthy,
who fell asleep like a crying child
on a gritty four-poster
in a polder full of puddles and pools.
I am no wind, no dyke, no water.
I am feet and hands, ears and eyes
to see metro, flat and minaret
like brothers set at the edge.
I feel the wind that skims along Schalkwijk (1)
about which one sneers.
But where I find this – all this –
Where Lord Meadow devotes himself
to his cows, their heads bent
like me: small out of shame
not to be cattle where there are so many cattle,
not grass where the greenery is lush and
not wings where everything is bird.
A high-shouldered heron
plays Bavo (2) along a Spaarne (3) ditch.
It splashes gold for whoever wants to hear
how rain is quietly ticking little holes in
Schalkwijk about which one sneers
and my heart has gone to live in my home.
1. Schalkwijk is the largest borough of the city of Haarlem.
2. The neo-romanesque cathedral of St Bavo in Haarlem.
3. The ditches which surround Haarlem are connected to the river Spaarne.