Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Robert Hass

TALL WINDOWS

HOGE VENSTERS

De hele dag heb je niet gehuild of geschreeuwd en had je zin om te slapen. Het verlangen om te slapen leek op het doven van gloeilampen als er een krachtig apparaat aanslaat. Je herkende dat. Zoals het je op school werd uitgelegd dat pus een moedig leger van witte bloedlichaampjes was dat zich op de kwaadaardige indringer wierp en stierf. In een trein door Nederland rijdend merkte je op dat zelfs het afval op de schroothopen netjes werd opgestapeld. Er waren libellen in de velden naast de waterwegen, keurige huisjes, hoge vensters. In Leiden werd het huis van Descartes, in de straat buiten de universiteit, weerspiegeld in de gracht. Er was een tweetal zwanen en een gevoel dat alle mensen op straat, zonder haast of vrees, punctueel hun afspraken zouden nakomen. Zwanen en spiegels. En Descartes. Je kon gemakkelijk vaststellen hoe deze Europese rust een dichter als Mallarmé zou voortbrengen, een burgerlijke kunst als het symbolisme. En je vond de collectieve ordelijkheid niet verachtelijk, de manier waarop het personeel in de winkels de bankbiljetten zorgvuldig in de kassa’s opborg met de afbeelding van de koningin naar boven. In het huis naast dat van Descartes was een joodse hoogleraar in 1937 gestorven. Zijn echtgenote was een Nederlandse vrouw met streng calvinistische overtuigingen die met twee zonen was achtergebleven. Toen de Duitsers in 1940 binnenvielen ging ze naar de rechtbank, waar ze op meinedige wijze verklaarde dat haar kinderen waren verwekt tijdens een onwettige affaire met een niet-jood; en toen ze in 1943 tuberculose kreeg ruilde ze paspoorten met een joodse vriendin, omdat ze toch zou sterven, en nam plaats in de trein naar de kampen. Haar zonen gaven haar een afscheidskus op het perron. Met open ogen. Wat je wakker hield was een gevoel dat alles in de wereld z’n eigen maat heeft, dat het kalm en licht zou zijn als je de juiste maat tussen uitzetten en krimpen ontdekte.

TALL WINDOWS

All day you didn’t cry or cry out and you felt like sleeping. The desire to sleep was lightbulbs dimming as a powerful appliance kicks on. You recognized that. As in school it was explained to you that pus was a brave army of white corpuscles hurling themselves at the virulent invader and dying. Riding through the Netherlands on a train, you noticed that even the junk was neatly stacked in the junkyards. There were magpies in the fields beside the watery canals, neat little houses, tall windows. In Leiden, on the street outside the university, the house where Descartes lived was mirrored in the canal. There was a pair of swans and a sense that, without haste or anxiety, all the people on the street were going to arrive at their appointments punctually. Swans and mirrors. And Descartes. It was easy to see how this European tranquillity would produce a poet like Mallarmé, a middle-class art like symbolism. And you did not despise the collective orderliness, the way the clerks in the stores were careful to put bills in the cash register with the Queen’s face facing upward. In the house next to the house where Descartes lived, a Jewish professor died in 1937. His wife was a Dutch woman of strict Calvinist principles and she was left with two sons. When the Nazis came in 1940, she went to court and perjured herself by testifying that her children were conceived during an illicit affair with a Gentile, and when she developed tuberculosis in 1943, she traded passports with a Jewish friend, since she was going to die anyway, and took her place on the train to the camps. Her sons kissed her goodbye on the platform. Eyes open. What kept you awake was a feeling that everything in the world has its own size, that if you found its size among the swellings and diminishings it would be calm and shine.
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TALL WINDOWS

All day you didn’t cry or cry out and you felt like sleeping. The desire to sleep was lightbulbs dimming as a powerful appliance kicks on. You recognized that. As in school it was explained to you that pus was a brave army of white corpuscles hurling themselves at the virulent invader and dying. Riding through the Netherlands on a train, you noticed that even the junk was neatly stacked in the junkyards. There were magpies in the fields beside the watery canals, neat little houses, tall windows. In Leiden, on the street outside the university, the house where Descartes lived was mirrored in the canal. There was a pair of swans and a sense that, without haste or anxiety, all the people on the street were going to arrive at their appointments punctually. Swans and mirrors. And Descartes. It was easy to see how this European tranquillity would produce a poet like Mallarmé, a middle-class art like symbolism. And you did not despise the collective orderliness, the way the clerks in the stores were careful to put bills in the cash register with the Queen’s face facing upward. In the house next to the house where Descartes lived, a Jewish professor died in 1937. His wife was a Dutch woman of strict Calvinist principles and she was left with two sons. When the Nazis came in 1940, she went to court and perjured herself by testifying that her children were conceived during an illicit affair with a Gentile, and when she developed tuberculosis in 1943, she traded passports with a Jewish friend, since she was going to die anyway, and took her place on the train to the camps. Her sons kissed her goodbye on the platform. Eyes open. What kept you awake was a feeling that everything in the world has its own size, that if you found its size among the swellings and diminishings it would be calm and shine.

TALL WINDOWS

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
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère